


the cut of a knife

by agetwellcard



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, M/M, Recovery, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers as the Winter Soldier, Winter Soldier Bucky Barnes, both are winter soldiers, both fell from the train
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-16
Updated: 2016-10-14
Packaged: 2018-08-15 07:06:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 33,939
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8047006
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agetwellcard/pseuds/agetwellcard
Summary: The blond-haired man is breathing heavily over him now, hand steady as he presses the blade warningly into his neck.
In Russian, he goes, “Your handler is dead,” and then, “You’re free.”  (AU in which Bucky and Steve both fall off the train and are taken in by HYDRA. It's not until many years later that they are rescued by SHIELD, and by then it might be too late.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i've always wanted to write an au in which they are both winter soldiers, so here we are. this is only the prologue and there will be three other parts to this, all longer than this prologue.
> 
> feel free to let me know what you think.
> 
> (also, i kind of posted this on the wrong account on the first try, sorry.)

**PROLOGUE**

 

The Asset wakes up in a white room.

Quickly, his brain catalogues what he knows.

Next to him, there is another man. The Asset vaguely recognizes him. The man has been on missions with him before. Particularly, the Asset remembers him from the way that he had worked so delicately with a single pocketknife, taking out a team of men with such grace and efficiency that the Asset had almost found himself distracted. Now, he appears to be passed out, just as the Asset had been, head lolling to one side and eyes closed. Neither of them are wearing their masks.

Across from him, there’s a door with no handle but a small viewing window. Outside the window is black.

His hands are secured behind his back, laced through the metal of a chair to keep him where he is. It’ not enough, though, and he knows that if he needed to, he could break the cuffs or even the chair. He’s assessing the situation, though, before making any moves.

The rest of the room is empty and unimportant except for the unmistakable red blink of a camera above the door. The Asset stares into it, head cocked slightly.

Slower, his brain calculates what he doesn’t know.

The events to how The Asset found himself in this room are unknown. The last thing he remembers is a mission assignment and the feeling of his cold fingers against the barrel of his gun. He doesn’t know if he’s a prisoner or only in holding.

The door to the room opens and The Asset becomes certain he is a prisoner.

***

_Bucky’s vision fades, colors once too bright and harsh melting into sepia tones and then only blackness. There’s a loud buzzing noise that keeps Bucky from falling back asleep. His eyes are so heavy, head blank and numb, but he knows he needs to stay awake. He doesn’t remember why anymore, but he knows he needs to be._

_He opens his eyes, for only a few seconds, to see people swarming all around him. They’re all in white, and Bucky thinks for a moment there’s something strange about that. Bucky blinks rapidly, trying to understand what’s happening. He tries to remember how he got here but he can’t._

_Someone is talking to him, he realizes. He has thick glasses, and Bucky knows the face but he can’t come up with his name or who he is. Bucky tries to comprehend what he’s saying, but none of it makes sense._

_His eyes fall shut again, everything a comforting black, the noises even quieting, as well._

_He doesn’t know why, but he thinks about that day last October when Steve had come home with his sketchbook under his arm and blood dripping down his face. Bucky had thrown him a rag and watched as Steve hesitantly held it against his face, smirking when Bucky made some crack about his love for street fights._

_Everything is so quiet in Bucky’s ears now._

_Before drifting off, he wonders if Steve is okay._

***

When the Asset wakes up again, the blond-haired man is still across from him. He’s no longer restrained, though, and instead sitting calmly in his chair with an indifferent expression on his face. There is blood running down the side of his temple from a deep wound. He is unconcerned about it.

The Asset tries to remember what happened before, but his memory is blank.

Something in his body is reacting to the situation poorly, and his intuition is telling him he needs to leave. Just as the Asset is about to break the cuffs and find his way out, the blond-haired man looks over to him, piercing blue eyes hard. In Russian, he quietly says, “Don’t.”

The Asset doesn’t trust anyone but his handlers, though, not even the blond-haired man who is good with a knife, so he easily frees his hands and starts for the door. There is no handle, and when he tries to pries it open, fingers painfully scrabbling at the crack of the door uselessly, nothing happens.

He moves back, ready to attempt to ram the door, but before he can lunge forward, it’s opened.

The Asset thinks: assess the situation before engaging.

The man in front of him is wearing all black and has an eye patch covering one of his eyes. He gives the Asset a menacing look. He’s about to engage, take the man in black down so he can leave the room, but then the blond-haired man jumps in between the two of them, back facing the Asset in a distinctly protective manner.

In English now, the man says, “Don’t.”

***

_The room Bucky’s kept in is cold. There’s nothing in it except for him. He leans with his back against the wall, his foreign left arm held away from his side and body curled uselessly into the corner, like it will protect him when they will inevitably return._

_And they do return, the stocky men from before, all dressed in black with snarling, foreign words spit at him even when they must know he doesn’t understand any of it. They grab him from the ground, cold hands icy against his skin as they drag him out. Bucky still fights, even when he knows it’s useless, bare feet knocking against the ground as his body tries to jerk away from their grips._

_He can’t get away, though, and by the time they’ve moved him to a wide-open room, the ceilings so high that the voices in the room carry, he’s shaking violently, cold sweat running down his forehead._

_The men press him into the large leather chair in the center of the room and secure him to it, ignoring the shaking and the way he’s begging them to stop, mouth suddenly working without Bucky’s permission. It all falls out, though, in slurred speech, things like, “Please, stop. Please. I’ll do anything. Let me go. Please.”_

_They shut him up with a hand grabbing his face, forcing open his mouth so someone else can slip something made of plastic into it. It slides into place just as his chair is bending back, something cold and metal pressing against his skull._

_When he first feels it, he screams out, and all he can think about is how his voice echoes through the room._

_It feels like the pain goes on forever, but eventually, it stops, his seat folding back up and someone grabbing for the guard in Bucky’s mouth. He feels his vision start to fade, but before he loses consciousness, he catches a flash of familiar blond hair, and when everything fades to black, he can hear someone calling out his name in a panicked voice._

_Bucky thinks maybe he knows this man, but he can’t place his face before he’s unconscious again._

***

“Do you know who you are?” the brown-haired woman who had introduced herself as Maria asks, voice gentle even if her face is hard.

The Asset remains silent.

The blond-haired man is gone. He had been willingly swept out the room by the man in black. The Asset’s fingers itch to see that man again, to tackle him down to the ground and kill him for being a traitor.

Still, the Asset won’t kill the blond-haired man or the woman in front of him. He tells himself he needs more intel before making another move.

“Do you know who the man that was here before is?” she asks now, voice indifferent to his silence.

The Asset remains silent.

Maria keeps trying, going through more questions that go unanswered. She collects her papers before standing up and exiting the room, the door clicking open for her. The Asset stays where he is, peering intently into the open crevice of the door for a clue of what he’s up against, but then the blond haired man is back, slipping through the open door and closing it behind him.

The Asset first stares at his hands. His black leather fingerless gloves are gone. To the Asset, this is a clear sign of a white flag. The man has given up his right to fight. He has betrayed himself and the team.

He doesn’t get a single word out before the Asset lunges at him, easily pinning him against the wall as his own gloved hands tighten around his neck. There is so little struggle that the Asset is almost suspicious of his lack of fight, but then the man kicks him once, twice, and the Asset drops to the ground like a dead weight.

His body is burning with the pain, but it’s an afterthought as he instinctively rolls over before the man can pounce on him. He’s not quite quick enough, though, and the man still manages to snag him, his whole body pinning the Asset to the cold floor.

He’s about to jerk forward when he feels the cold press of metal against his throat. _It’s a knife_ , his brain supplies.

The blond-haired man is breathing heavily over him now, hand steady as he presses the blade warningly into his neck.

In Russian, he goes, “Your handler is dead,” and then, “You’re free.”

***

_When Bucky wakes up in his cell, the room even colder than it was before, his mouth tastes metallically and his head is throbbing. Sitting up, Bucky holds his hands up to his ears, the ringing louder than it’s ever been._

_He tries to remember what happened, but all he gets are snatches of a leather chair and a blond-haired man. He can’t even remember what happened before all of this for a few hard minutes, his breath labored as he tugs at his hair._

_His brain keeps repeating his name and number (Barnes, James Buchanan, 32557), but Bucky doesn’t care anymore about it. He leans his head against the cold wall and tries to figure out how he knew the blond-haired man. His brain is telling him it’s important. He knows he’s supposed to know him. He knows he’s important._

_Bucky spends hours agonizing over the tiny sliver of his blond hair and blue eyes, and his choked voice as he yelled Bucky’s name out._

_It’s not until he’s half-asleep, brain nearly hallucinating from how exhausted he is, that he thinks of how hot it gets on a summer day in Brooklyn. He can smell the hot dogs at Coney Island and hear the sound of someone’s gramophone playing loudly in the apartment over. He thinks of home and sees the blond haired man’s face, and startles awake._

_“Steve,” he whispers, voice hoarse and broken._

_They have Steve._

***

The blond-haired man still has the knife pressed to his neck, cold blue eyes staring down at him.

The Asset holds his breath. “Who are you?” he asks.

The man leans back, slowly moving the knife away from his neck. He gives the Asset a long look before slowly shrugging his shoulders. “I don’t know,” he tells him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so this starts up a little before the prologue, and then meets where the prologue starts. hopefully that is pretty obvious.

**PART ONE**

 

The Asset leans against the building, shoulders hunched inconspicuously as he watches down the long alleyway for a sign of movement. Beside him, his partner for the mission is expertly twirling a knife in his hand, a bored expression on his face. His cold blue eyes are watching down the same alleyway as the Asset is, his ears pink from the cold. He doesn’t have long hair to cover them, like the Asset, but instead short blond hair.

They’ve been waiting for at least an hour. When they had arrived, dropped off two blocks away and told to walk to these coordinates, it had been snowing, the flakes melting into the Asset’s hair and making the pavement slippery under his boots. Now, the snow has stopped, and has even melted away like it had never even happened.

The Asset can hear the other man’s boots hit against the pavement as he paces, and he listens to it for a few moments before turning around and shooting a hard look at the man. It’s meant to intimidate him, to keep his boots from scraping so obnoxiously, but the man keeps moving, the knife in his hand still in motion. The Asset is watching it distractedly when it comes to a halting stop.

Whipping his head back to the end of the alleyway, the Asset sees a group of men walking by, all in militant greens and speaking English loudly.

It’s what they’ve been waiting for.

The Asset and the man make eye contact and then nod, two of them clicking into synch as they stalk towards the soldiers, the two of them shoulder to shoulder. The Asset’s hand finds the smooth metal of his gun, tucked away in his jacket. His hand wraps around it and instantly everything falls into place. He is in control.

By the time they make it out of the alley, the men are all walking ahead, not even suspecting their presence. The Asset has never liked it like that. He wants to scuff his boot a little too hard into the pavement or shoot off a warning bullet into the sky. He wants for them to know he’s here and that they should be scared. He wants to see the fear in their faces. He won’t get the satisfaction, though, because killing the soldiers is meant to be quick and clean. The Asset would never jeopardize a mission.

He looks over to the man next to him, expecting another nod before they move in, but the man moves ahead on his own accords, snagging the person walking in the back and instantly slicing their neck open. The victim hasn’t even hit the ground before the man has done the same to another.

The Asset holds up his gun, aims, and shoots within seconds, easily picking off the men that aren’t falling to the floor covered in their own blood at the hands of a pocketknife.

Once the group of soldiers is all dead, or at least bleeding out unintelligibly on the pavement, the Asset watches as the blond man cleans his knife with the sleeve of one of the fallen soldiers. He looks up to the Asset and, from behind the mask, muffles out in hard Russian, “They’ll know we’re coming.” His eyes pointedly drop down to the gun.

The Asset says nothing and continues on. The mission did not call for stealth. Stepping around the bodies, the Asset does not look back to see if the man is following him. He can feel his presence, but not hear the sounds of his steps. He’s just as silent as the Asset when he wants to be.

They walk up the few steps to the front door of the building with their guns out and on show. They aren’t here to kill civilians, but they will if they present a problem. They had studied the floor maps of the building, and know that they have to take a right after securing the lobby with a chest shot to the man behind the counter who was reaching for his own gun.

Civilians are screaming and running, bodies flat against the wall as they pass by. It’s exactly what they want. The more chaos the better.

With another right and two lefts, they find themselves headed for the stairs to the basement. The door is locked, but one swift blow with his left arm is enough to get them clamoring down the stairs, footsteps loud and ominous. With arms raised, they turn the corner to find an empty room. It’s not what they planned for. The exit should be sealed.

They carefully check the room to find it as empty as they suspected. Glancing at each other, the same confusion as the Asset’s feeling written all over the man’s face, they head for the one exit, a metal door that appears tightly shut.

Before they can reach for the handle, something lands with a heavy thud from behind them. The Asset whips around to find a metal object emitting a thick white smoke. Gas. He takes the few necessary steps to kick it away, holding his breath even if the mask is made to filter it.

They’re both creeping forward towards the stairs when someone shoots at them from behind. It’s completely miscalculated, though, the bullet sailing by at least a foot away. The Asset is half turned around when something cold pierces into the skin of his neck. It’s not a bullet and it doesn’t hurt enough to incapacitate the soldier, so he ignores it.

Assessing the room, he finds that it’s suddenly teeming with soldiers, surrounding them on all sides. The Asset automatically holds up his gun and aims the shot, but he can’t pull the trigger for some reason. His arm won’t steady.

His legs buckle just as he’s reaching up to touch the spot where he thought he was stabbed. He can feel blood but the wound is too small. His brain is trying to make connections, but suddenly everything is so fading out, the noises of the room sounding distant.

***

The Asset wakes up in a white room.

***

Once the blond-haired man has hidden his knife again and stood up, he looks at the Asset with weary eyes. The Asset is still on the ground, breath heavy and mouth slightly parted. He doesn’t trust the blond-haired man. He says his handler is dead, and the Asset refuses to believe it.

Alexander Pierce is a smart man.

The man leaves, though, before the Asset can find out more information on the matter. Once the door is shut, he slowly stands up and walks a few steps to the window. He blinks a few times until his eyes focus in on a small, redheaded woman standing across from the window. She’s staring straight at the Asset, green eyes unwavering as she stands with her arms over her chest. She quirks an amused eyebrow at him and then breaks their eye contact to look over and say something to the older man she’s talking to.

The Asset does not like the look of her, and part of him feels as though he recognizes her.

Suddenly, she’s walking up to the door. The Asset steps back as the door opens and she walks in, nonchalantly swaying her hips as she leans against the wall and curiously cocks her head at the Asset.

“James,” she says then.

The Asset remains silent. This means nothing to him.

“That’s your name,” she tells him knowingly in English. “Though, according to the files, you never went by it. Went by something else, actually. You remember it?”

The Asset remains silent. He is the Asset, and he has no other names.

She switches to a perfect Russian and says, “Did you forget your English or something?”

The Asset shakes his head.

“Good,” she continues, switching back to English. “Because I don’t really like speaking Russian. Reminds me of my past.” She pauses, crossing her arms again. “That’s kind of the reason I’m here. It’s not about my past, though. It’s yours.”

The Asset has no past. His handler makes sure of that.

“James,” she says, now leaning forward conspiratorially. “Do you know what year it is?”

***

The handcuffs they put on him are much stronger than the ones from before. The Asset is unsure if he can break them apart, but if the situation calls for it, he can always break his thumbs to get out.

Two men are pushing him along and they both have tight grips on either of his arms. His whole body is slack, the knuckles on his right hand stinging and head pounding. The Asset longs for cryogenic stasis. It’s been so long since he’s felt the cold that his whole body feels feverish.

He’s brought into a small room and set down on a chair, the two men standing guard next to him. Looking around, the Asset recognizes the redheaded woman, the man in all black, and the blond-haired man. There are a few others crowded around, all pointedly watching the Asset.

The blond-haired man steps towards him and, in Russian, says, “You still don’t remember anything?”

“Where is Pierce?” the Asset asks, voice raw from his yelling. He had screamed out this exact sentence countless times as his fists beat into the door and the walls.

The redheaded woman makes an annoyed sound. “Unbelievable,” she says, turning to the Asset. “He’s dead. I told you already. I killed him with my own hands.”

Alexander Pierce is not dead. The Asset knows this. He can’t be dead.

The blond-haired man steps closer to the group, head leaning down as he talks quietly. “Why doesn’t he remember like I do?”

The Asset watches as the redhead looks between the two, eyes searching for something. She stops on the man’s face, eyes pointed at the red wound on his forehead.

“Do you think it has something to do with that?” she whispers, motioning with her hand.

“Natasha,” the man in all black says. “I don’t think that’s – ”

“It could be,” the blond-haired man interrupts, fingers gingerly touching his temple. Then, he turns swiftly and heads for the Asset, shoulders squared and eyes bright with a new mission assignment. “I’m sorry about this,” he says, face apologetic.

The Asset knows what’s coming, and jumps to his feet to fend off the attack, easily side-stepping to miss the man’s first attempt at grabbing him. His balance is off with his hands behind his back, though, and when his feet falter just a little, the man has his hands on the Asset’s shoulders, quickly and efficiently shoving him into the wall.

The Asset hears the crack of his skull and then everything goes black.

***

He wakes in a bedroom.

It’s small and only has a bed, a nightstand, and a desk in it. He tries to sit up, but a throbbing pain in his head keeps him from going any further. He brings a hand up to survey the damage, but finds the source of his pain already bandaged up. He wants to look deeper, feel the wound for himself, but then the door to the room opens.

It’s a blond-haired man. He seems familiar, like maybe he had been dreaming of the man before he had walked in. He tries to remember his dream, but he can’t. He tries to remember how he’s even come to dream in this bedroom, and he can’t figure that out either.

The man takes one look at him and cringes. “I’m sorry.”

“Where am I?” he asks, forcing himself to sit up even a little. He refuses to look as weak as he feels. His vision spots a little, but returns to normal in a few seconds.

“I don’t know exactly where,” the man says softly. “Fury said it’s called SHIELD, but I don’t know what that is.”

None of this is any help.

“Who are you?”

This appears to be a loaded question for the man. He crosses his arms over his broad chest and is silent for a few seconds. He clears his throat before finally going, “They told me my name was Steve but…I don’t remember being Steve.”

For a brief moment, he thinks of how absurd it is that this man doesn’t know his own name, but then he realizes that he doesn’t even know his.

“Who…” he trails on, hoping that the man will understand.

“Natasha said your name is James,” he tells him, and then, “James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky for short.”

The name stirs something in his head, but it doesn’t feel like his name, either.

He doesn’t want to ask any more questions but he needs to know. “What happened?” he asks slowly.

They hold a painful eye contact for a few silent seconds before Steve looks away, eyes falling to the ground and body looking even smaller than it was before. He inhales loudly before going, “You’re probably hungry. I’m going to go get you something.”

Steve’s out of the room before he can ask him anything else. It can’t be a good sign that he won’t talk to him about what happened.

Looking around, he tries to busy himself by examining the room. The bed has a white comforter and white sheets, and the frame is made of a light brown wood, the same shade as the nightstand and desk. There is a single lamp on the nightstand and nothing else. When he opens its deep drawer, there is nothing inside. The desk across from him has nothing on it, either. It must be a guest bedroom.

He realizes that he’s dressed in a soft white t-shirt, the material falling loosely over his chest, and a pair of dark grey sweatpants. Then, in a horrified moment, he realizes he can’t even remember what his face looks like. He brings a hand up to feel at his face, hoping maybe he’ll somehow remember what it looks like.

It’s then, as he’s trying to read his face like brail, that Steve walks back in. He’s even actually holding a tray of food. He looks up at Steve, fingers frozen on his lips, and then squints at the man. For a second, he seemed familiar. Now looking at him, though, he can’t figure out what it is.

Steve sets the tray on his lap and then holds out a fork and a butter knife, muttering, “Here.”

He stares at the butter knife, mouth parting in surprise. He remembers this man with a different knife, breezing through a group of men and killing each of them with his knife to their throats.

He gasps loudly as the past falls on him heavily. He doesn’t want to believe it’s his past, but he knows it is, no matter how disconnected he feels about it.

Steve slowly lowers his offered hand, a worried expression on his face.

The pounding in his head suddenly intensifies. “I need to know what’s going on.”

***

The hot water from the shower almost makes him cry. No matter how patchy his memory might be, his body refuses to forget how the cold that has seeped into his bones from years of cryo. A hot shower won’t make him forget, but it can help, if only for a short period of time.

He puts his face into the spray and forces his eyes closed. Ever since he started to remember, and after all he’s heard today, he feels jumpy, like at any moment he’ll jerk awake and find out it’s all been a dream. Part of him is even scared he’s still in cryo, but he knows by now he doesn’t dream in cryo.

Or at least he didn’t. _The Asset_ didn’t.

His body won’t allow for a shower longer than ten minutes, so he pulls himself from the hot water and steps out into the haze that is the steam filled bathroom. He wraps a plush towel around his torso and then steps to retrieve the clothes one of the agents had pushed his way from the sink counter. It’s an exact replica of the outfit he was wearing, now thrown in a pile on the ground next to the tub.

Above the sink there is a steamed up mirror. He had avoided the reflection when he had first walked in, but now he looks at dark shape that is his face and tries to remember what exactly he should expect. All he can come up with is a pair of dull blue eyes.

Slowly, he wipes his fingers across the glass where his eyes should be, partially afraid he’ll be wrong. He’s not, though. His blue eyes stare back at him, cold and strained. He leans closer, to see the reds of his eyes more carefully. He catches the hard lines of his low-set eyebrows and the beginnings of the slope of his nose. He can’t help but to wipe away the rest of the steam and take in the rest of his face. He stares carefully, experimentally running his fingers through the stubble on his face.

The more he looks, he still doesn’t see Bucky. He doesn’t see the Asset, either. He sees a nameless man that apparently he’s been his entire life. He doesn’t know who he is anymore, but he figures he needs to try to be Bucky. Bucky is better than the Asset.

He looks away and gets changed, pushing his wet hair behind his ears. When he exits the bathroom, there are two guards outside, both with nervous expressions on their faces at the sight of him. He can’t look that intimidating, though, barefoot and with dripping wet hair. He knows better than that, though. He can practically feel the fight in him, and he knows how dangerous he really is.

They follow his steps as he heads for his bedroom. He quickly puts on a pair of socks and the sneakers he had been handed earlier. Back in the hallway, the two men are waiting, watching curiously to see what he’s going to do.

He clears his throat. “I want to go back to the office. I want to see him.”

They look confused. They’re going to make him say the name.

“I want to see Steve,” he says, voice lowering on his name. He doesn’t quite understand why it hurts to say.

They nod and then start leading him through the maze of the building. He tries to memorize all the turns, but eventually he gives up, resolutely deciding he has better things to spend his energy on. They take an elevator up a few floors to where it’s more crowded, and more like an office, men and women dressed in suits passing by with only passing stares.

It’s in a dark boardroom where he finds Steve. He’s sitting at the end of a conference table, hands in his lap and a focused look on his face. He realizes there is something playing across the room, the audio so soft he almost misses it. It’s in black and white, and at first all he sees are explosions and random soldiers, but then he realizes it’s Steve.

After he had almost had a breakdown over a butter knife, Steve tried his best to explain what had happened to them, but he still didn’t know all the specifics. Even from his mouth it sounded like some twisted tale, like it hadn’t actually personally happened to either of them. Eventually, he was brought to a different office on this floor and explained everything by a team of people, all talking over each other and slipping him photos of his old self. All of it seemed like a bad dream.

He enters the boardroom and sits down at the table across from Steve. There are a few file folders sitting next to him, glossy photo prints scattered in-between them.

“You’re in some of these,” Steve tells him, face blank when he looks over to him.

It’s not him, though. It’s _Bucky_. He doesn’t tell this to Steve.

On the screen, Steve is dressed up as Captain America and throwing a bright shield around. He looks away, scared he’ll catch a glimpse of Bucky on the film.

“Do you remember me?” he blurts out in a moment of stupidity.

From across the table, Steve frowns at him. “A little,” he admits. “But not really. I think it might be just be because of all the photos and videos, though. I think I just want to remember you.” He gestures to the papers on the table, shoving some towards him.

Leaning forward, he looks at a sepia-toned photograph and tries to make sense of it. It’s a line up of soldiers, but he easily spots Steve and Bucky in the middle. Steve’s shield is in front of him and Bucky has his gun in his grip, barrel facing the ground. He looks rough, face hard and clothes dirty like the other soldiers. Steve, though, looks like he’s been cleaned up for the cameras.

He looks away from it, suddenly feeling sick, only to glance up and catch Bucky’s face up on the screen. He’s laughing with Steve, the two of them sharing a happy moment in the middle of a gory war. Bucky’s face is _his_ face. They’re the same person.

Jumping to his feet, Bucky rushes out of the room, leaving behind a confused Steve. He’s not sure where he’s going, but he ends up running right into the redhead he remembers from before in the office, Natasha. They don’t actually collide, both of their reflexes too quick for that, but they do end up staring at each other quizzically before Natasha smiles a little.

“Your shirts all wet,” she points out, eyes dropping to gesture to his shirt.

His hair had been wet because of the shower and, looking down, he realizes it’s made the collar wet, as well. It seems insignificant at the moment.

“Was just about to go and find you and Steve,” she tells him now. “I’m leaving soon. Things to do in New York, and they really only called me in case you two didn’t want to speak English.”

He feels a little vulnerable when she says this. He had thought maybe they didn’t know about the other languages he knew, his brain occasionally clicking into Russian for a few seconds until he pulls himself from it.

“Anyways, just thought I’d let you know,” she says, giving him a meaningful glance. He tries to understand what she means by it, but he can’t come up with anything.

She keeps staring at him, so he finally chokes out, “Goodbye.”

He doesn’t miss the disappointed look on her face, but it’s enough for her to step around and head for the boardroom.

***

There are at least a dozen wires attached to him and an IV drip in his arm. Nurses keep whizzing by as the main doctor, who introduced himself as Doctor Banner, squints through his thick glasses to read information on his computer. He’s mumbling to himself, words that he can’t quite pick out due to the buzzing of the room, but he seems confused by the data.

Nervously, Doctor Banner looks over to him, lying on the hospital bed with his feet kicked up. His footsteps over are cautious, and voice just as soft when he says, “We’re going to compare everything to Steve’s data to see if there’s something different there. Right now, though, we’re kind of in the dark about all of this.”

He swallows thickly and looks down to his open palms on his lap. He had caught Steve as he left the lab, eyes glossed over as he headed for the floor they are on, completely ignoring the pointed look he’d given him.

Doctor Banner gestures to the bandage on the right side of his head, the one that the nurses had kindly changed for him. “You know, as far as head injuries go, he did a decent job of not killing you,” Doctor Banner tells him with a shrug.

“It worked, didn’t it?” he doesn’t remember when Steve did it, but Steve had told him about it. He knows the rest of them think it was risky and strange, but he’s grateful for it. Somehow, it really only makes sense to him and Steve.

Doctor Banner smiles. “That it did.”

As Bruce starts to work on detaching him from all the wires, he wonders if he hit his head again more would come back. It’s not a horrible idea and he know that he could do it; smash his head against the wall, that is. It’s a thought for later, one that he knows he can’t voice to Doctor Banner. There are still two guards watching over his every move.

Before he leaves, Doctor Banner slaps a hand on his shoulder, a smile on his face for a few seconds before he slowly retracts his hand, like he’s scared he’ll be murdered for the touch alone. Mustering as much happiness as he can manage, he smiles at him and goes, “Thanks, Doctor Banner.”

The guards have to show him back to his floor. The glass elevator slides through the floors quickly, the DC outside blurring by. He takes a look at the guards again, two straight-faced goons that, if necessary, he knows he’d be able to take. Easily, too, probably.

On his floor, he pads to his room, but stops abruptly when he hears laughter from behind a half-opened door. It’s Steve’s bedroom, only a few down from his own. Maybe it’s because he knows it’s Steve’s room, but he knows _that_ laugh. It rings in his head like a warning sign, like it’s desperately trying to stay afloat in the tangled mess that is his thoughts.

He sticks out a hand to lean against the wall with, suddenly feeling unsteady. The guards only look vaguely worried.

Carefully, he knocks on the door to Steve’s room. There are a few seconds of a silence before the sounds of steps and then Steve is standing in front of him, eyes bright when he sees who it is. Somehow, he understands this feeling, even if he’s not sure what it means.

“Bucky,” he says, the flicker of a smile on his lips.

He doesn’t mean to, but he flinches at the name.

Steve notices and gives him a sad look. “I do the same thing,” he tells him in a quiet voice, eyes peering over his shoulder to see the guards outside. “Come in.”

Stepping inside, he watches as Steve closes the door behind them and then sits down on his bed, an abandoned book sitting on one of the pillows. Standing above him, he idly wonders where he got a book.

“Do you not want for me to call you Bucky?” Steve asks then.

He wants to automatically say yes. It’s his name, though. He’s Bucky, whether he likes it or not now. Still, there is a part of him that feels like he’s still with HYDRA, and at any moment they’ll storm in and put him back in cryo.

Bucky is who he is, though. He’s no longer the Asset.

“I’m fine with Bucky,” he says. “Do you not want to be called Steve?” And then, just because he can, “Do you want me to call you Captain America?”

This gets a wry smile from Steve, something that makes Bucky’s stomach flip. He knows that smile.

Steve shakes his head. “Steve is fine. _Please_ no Captain America.”

It’s then that he smiles back, lips cracking as he does so. It feels foreign and not exactly right on his lips, but it’s his body’s reaction the situation, and he figures that’s a start. He’s still a human, somewhere in there.

Finally, he sits down at the end of the bed, perched precariously, as if he’s scared he’ll need to make a run for it. It’s probably just muscle memory from a past life.

“Hey,” Steve says, voice serious. “I wanted to ask you something?”

They’re jarring words, but he nods nonetheless.

“Yesterday, you asked me if I remembered you,” he explains. “I never got the chance to ask it back to you. So, do you remember me?”

He drops their eye contact, wondering if it’s appropriate to rush out of the room even if there is no threat. This isn’t a question he wants to answer. The answer is too complicated for him to get into the right words for Steve to understand.

There are moments, like when he laughs, that he recognizes. Something inside him is happy to hear that laugh, to know something familiar.

Other times, though, there are moments that he hasn’t told anyone about. Memories will fall on him, but they aren’t as heavy as the ones of his time as the Asset. Instead of murder, he sees Steve cross-legged on a fire escape or he’ll see him wobbling forward with red blood dripping down his pale skin. The memories are fleeting, and sometimes feel more like dreams or things he’s completely made up. He’s desperate to know if they’re real, but he’s too scared they aren’t to speak up.

“Not really. I’m sorry,” he finally says to Steve’s disappointment.

Across from him, Steve frowns and curls his arms around his torso. “It’s not your fault.” Then, he quickly adds, “It’s just the other night I – “ He laughs and shakes his head, not much humor to it. “Never mind. Think I’m going a little crazy.”

“I think we already are.”

Steve seems hurt by this. “You think?”

He sure as hell feels crazy.

“I should get to bed,” he spits out, like he actually has a reason to go to bed early.

Nodding solemnly, Steve shows him out, body leaning against his doorframe as he watching him retreat to his own bedroom. He closes the door behind him and leans against it once it’s shut.

He is crazy. He must be.

They made him like this, though.

***

The next few days pass in a blur of more medical tests and soft conversations with Steve. They don’t talk about their pasts, and instead about unimportant things about living in the building. They have conversations about Doctor Banner’s tea or the way the light in the bathroom sometimes flicker. It’s enough, though. Steve even starts coming to his bedroom every night and sits at the end of his desk as they read books.

He doesn’t know if Steve understands it too, but being with someone makes him feel better. When he’s alone, everything about being the Asset comes back to him. He can lie in bed for hours in his dark room drowning in memories, but if Steve’s there, talking softly about something the two of them probably don’t really care about, he feels better. He can ignore it all. It also helps to know Steve is in his exact position, only he manages to smile more than Bucky.

Whenever he sees Doctor Banner, he’s always trying to get him to open up about how his memories are coming back or possible symptoms he could be having, but his mouth won’t allow for him to say anything. He can’t admit to the few sparse memories he has remembered, or even the nightmares that wake him up late at night, drenched in cold sweat and horrified by the images of past kills.

It’s easier to say nothing at all. And Steve understands that, too.

On one night, Steve must get some news, something about his past and he doesn’t come and visit him before they go to bed. Instead, his door stays closed. He stands at the doorway of the bathroom, trying to inconspicuously hear anything from Steve’s bedroom. Expectedly, he hears nothing.

The next day, though, as they get lunch together, Steve is back to normal, giving him this sad half-smile every time they make eye contact. He knows better than to ask about it.

He barely even realizes how trapped inside he feels until Sharon, one of the agents signed on to help them recover, taps on the door one night as him and Steve are reading. She sticks her head in, giving them a bright smile like she always does, and then goes, “So, who’s ready for a field trip?”

They both squint at her.

She laughs, clearly amused. “We’re going somewhere tomorrow. Not too far from here, but I think you’ll like it.”

He almost forgot that he’s been holed up in this building for a week now. He has nowhere else to go, but suddenly the idea of being able to leave excites him. Outside the building seems so elusive, and the only parts of the world he’s seen are from behind a tinted mask, mind elsewhere on a mission.

The next morning, after a shower, he’s given new clothes. A pair of dark-wash jeans, a faded grey t-shirt, and a light jacket. He puts them on and looks at himself in the mirror, the collar of the jacket a bright red color. He drags his hands across it and then decides to head out.

In the hallway, Steve and Sharon are already waiting, the two of them flanked by three bodyguards. His hair is still wet, once again dripping onto his jacket and t-shirt, but neither of them seemed concerned by it. Instead, Steve walks shoulder-to-shoulder with him and flashes his usual smile in greeting.

They’re guided through back doors to a parked black car with tinted windows. He looks all around the world, though, taking in the half-empty parking lot and the blue sky above them. Everything feels new, and he’s suddenly buzzing with the prospect of going somewhere new. It’s not until they’re in the car, seatbelts buckled and the driver turning out of the parking lot that Sharon finally tells them where they’re going.

“It’s a museum,” she explains from the front seat, slightly twisted so she can look at the two of them. “Well, not the whole museum, but an exhibit that I think could help you regain some memories.”

It’s vague, but he figures it must be some exhibit on the forties, or even World War Two. Neither of them enquires about it any more, though, because they’re both busy staring out the window, watching as D.C. goes by as they lurch through downtown traffic. He observes all the buildings and people, a fervent curiosity about it all.

He somehow lived through seventy years and never managed to see the world age with him.

When they pull up to the museum, the steps to the entrance are littered with people. He’s scared for a few seconds that he’ll have to walk through all of them. He knows (or at least hopes) that he can probably make it through the crowd with no issues, but he’s still scared. He’s afraid of himself. He’s afraid of what he’s capable of, and of who he was, and maybe still is underneath everything.

Sharon stems this fear quickly, though, handing them each a pair of sunglasses and a hat. “There’s a side door we’re going in through, and the exhibit is closed just for us, but we’re taking some precautions.”

He’s not exactly a national icon, but Steve is. The world thinks he’s dead, too. Once they find out that he’s alive, people are going to care. He wonders how long it will take for people to find out exactly how Steve’s managed to stay alive for all these years. It’s likely SHEILD will come up with a good cover story, but anything can be uncovered given enough time.

Hidden in his baseball cap and sunglasses, they make their way into the museum. He keeps his hands deep in his pockets, scared of his own body and self-conscious of the gleaming metal of his arm. It only gets worse when they enter the museum, the voices of the visitors echoing off the walls loudly, some of them only a few feet from their huddled group.

From beside him, Steve’s shoulder bumps into his softly as he goes, “You okay?”

His only response is a terse head nod. He has to be okay.

Steve still looks worried, but before he can say anything else, they walk upon a huge mural of Captain America and the start of what must be a whole exhibit for him. It makes more sense why they came all the way out here. Steve’s mouth falls open as he slips off his glasses, like he needs more confirmation that the mural is actually him.

It is, though, and so are the other pictures of him, plastered on nearly every surface.

“This was opened a few months ago,” Sharon tells them, smiling at their reactions. “It was for your birthday, actually, Steve. Kind of opportune that you’re here to see it.”

Steve is speechless, mouth still parted as he looks around in every direction.

“Take as long as you need,” Sharon tells them, stepping off to the side with the guards.

On the walls, there are descriptions of the life and times of Steven Grant Rogers. He reads all of them slowly, head cocked and squinting as he takes it all in. It might not be his life, but it is Steve’s, and Steve is supposed to be his childhood best friend. He’s not sure if they’ll ever really be friends, but he hopes they will be.

Steve’s face has gone from shocked to sickly in the time that he was looking away. He steps closer, bumping their shoulders cautiously just as Steve had done earlier. “You okay?” he echoes.

“I…I remember some of this,” Steve admits. “I can’t explain it but I feel like I can remember being that little guy.” He looks to him with a concerned look on his face. “Should I be able to remember that?”

He shrugs. “Probably. It’s your past.”

Steve walks further into the exhibit, and he trails after him. Against one of the walls, there is giant setup of mannequins with faces behind each one. It only takes a few second to realize it’s him on that wall, right next to Captain America in a dark blue jacket. His face looks so much younger than the one staring back at him every day in the mirror. His hair is cut shorter, too, just like in all the other photos or videos he’s seen.

He turns around, hoping to flee from Bucky’s face, but only finds himself looking at another picture of him. This time, it’s projected on a see-through screen. The man on the screen looks so much more confident and strong than he looks in mirror. He’s a whole other person, and yet, it’s Bucky Barnes that is typed next to the photo. There’s even a description of Bucky’s life, all laid out and connected to Steve’s perfectly. He knows most of it already, but there’s something about seeing it in such a public place that is jarring. He thinks he understands what Steve was feeling when they first walked in.

“I didn’t think we were really this close,” Steve tells him, suddenly at his side and looking over Bucky’s face on the screen.

Bucky and Steve _were_ close. Who he is, and who the man next to him is a whole other story. He still doesn’t even feel like he can refer to himself as Bucky, and that all of this is a lie, and that it really isn’t his past.

There’s something that grounds him, though, when it comes to Steve. Somehow, before even coming here, he knew they had been incredibly close. He could feel their connection, like there was something keeping them together all along.

Now, he’s scared that Steve doesn’t feel the connection, that maybe he’s making all of this up.

“We did die together,” he says, not sure if he’s joking or not.

Steve gives him a sympathetic smile and then reads about Bucky’s life, mouthing along as he reads.

After they had gone over the text enough, they move on together, reading more about Steve’s life, Bucky’s name only mentioned a few other times. Walking into a dark room, there is a video playing on a loop. It’s of a stunning brunet woman with an English accent. She’s talking about Steve.

The two of them sit on the bench in front of the projector, leaving a comfortable space between their bodies. Just as they sit, the video starts over, yellow text popping up at the bottom of the screen.

“ _Agent Peggy Carter, SSR. New York, 1953_.”

They listen to the video all the way through in silence. Once it’s started over, he thinks he has to ask who she is. No one had mentioned a Peggy Carter in any of their stories, but she clearly knew Steve.

He glances over, but finds Steve’s eyes pointed to the ground and body hunched over dejectedly.

“Steve?”

There is a long moment of silence, one where he doesn’t think Steve will say anything at all, but then he clear his throat and goes, “She was…we were – well, not exactly. But maybe. Maybe if I hadn’t, _you know_.”

It doesn’t make much sense, but he’s scared to prod further, especially with the way he’s so hunched in on himself. Looing back to the video, he watches it again, and it’s only when she stumbles over Steve’s name that he thinks he understands. They were –

“ _Oh_ ,” he blurts out dumbly.

“I don’t remember loving her,” Steve says next, looking up with glassy eyes. His face is so open and vulnerable, one of the first times he’s seen it like this. Something deep in him is hurt by this, like Steve’s pain is also his own. “I know I must’ve. I just can’t remember.”

Her voice is still ringing out, an incessant reminder of Steve’s failure. He wishes they could turn it off for him.

Just as cautiously as before, he slides closer to Steve, so their bodies are almost touching but not quite. “You will remember,” he tells him, “and if you don’t, I don’t think it really matters anymore. You might be saving yourself the heartache.”

At this, Steve’s stares strangely at him. He opens his mouth like he wants to say something, but closes it. He continues staring, maybe hoping he can convey whatever it is he wants to say nonverbally. He’s not picking it up, though, so all he can do is nod once at Steve. As if given permission, Steve suddenly leans in, wrapping his arms around him and pulling him close. It takes a moment, where he stiffens and almost pushes away from the touch, for him to realize it’s a _hug_.

Everything about it should feel foreign after years of what he’s gone through. Instead, though, the warm embrace feels more natural than breathing.

 _You’ve been here before_ , he thinks, _you know this embrace well_.

All he can think about are hugs in a tiny apartment, Steve’s forehead burning hot against his shoulder, but _he’s going to be okay_. And all he can think about are hugs given in a scratchy dress uniform, the two of them quiet and forlorn at every goodbye. And all he can think about are hugs in abandoned homes and wide open fields, the fear of not knowing if they’ll be able hold each other again fervently keeping them close as possible.

He knows all his memories are real, then. They must be.

Because _he’s_ Bucky. These are his own memories. All of the sadness and all of the happiness, it’s all his.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> come say hi on [my tumblr](http://hiver-soldier.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This turned out to be much longer than I intended it to be, but hopefully everyone is still with me :")

**PART TWO**

“It’s disgusting,” Steve tells him, nose scrunched as he watches Bucky peal back the lid of a Jell-O cup.

Bucky shakes it experimentally, the corners of his lips quirking up when he notices Steve’s horrified expression. “You probably loved it in the forties,” he tells him, now poking his spoon into it.

“No way,” he hums. “I refuse to believe that.”

“It’s true, I definitely remember it. It’s all you used to eat,” he assures him, just to see the disbelieving look on Steve’s face. He takes a spoonful of it, tasting it carefully before swallowing it down with a grimace. “Yeah, you’re right. That is pretty bad.”

Steve erupts in a full, giddy laughter and pushes the cup further away from them. They’re in the cafeteria of the building, the other employees around them all eating in hurries to get back to work as Steve and him spend at least an hour trying assortments of food. It’s become one of their pastimes to try food after both of them has timidly admitted one day that neither of them could really remember what they liked and disliked when it came to eating.

They’ve been confined to the building for two weeks now, except for their one trip to the museum. The guards have stopped following them around, but they still know they’re being carefully watched. There isn’t much to do, either. Besides experimentally trying food, having Sharon set them up on some new television show, or decoding what Doctor Banner is trying to tell them, they don’t do much. It’s easier to spend time with Steve than be alone, though.

They aren’t exactly “inseparable” like they must’ve been before, but they do spend a lot of time together, which Bucky mostly just chalks up to the fact that there’s no one else to do anything with. Bucky likes Steve, though, and finds that his memories always pop up when he’s around him. Although there’s still a lot to remember, Bucky’s mostly given up on the idea of slamming his head against the wall again.

Bucky still hasn’t told him about the connection he feels with Steve, or about most of the memories that he’s slowly getting back. He wants to, but he’s scared he has it all wrong, and that their friendship was more coincidental than destiny. The thought of Steve not feeling the connection gives Bucky enough fear to not even bring it up.

“I was right,” Steve says smugly.

Bucky snags one of the leftover french fries from Steve’s plate and shrugs. “Maybe just this once.”

Steve is smiling at him but then he catches something behind Bucky and it slips off. Bucky carefully looks back to find a few agents clustered together and clearly staring at them. It’s not a new thing. People have been curious about them ever since they had been granted clearance to the cafeteria, but Bucky doesn’t even think they know exactly who they are.

“When do you think they’re going to tell people?” Steve asks him quietly.

Bucky scoffs. “When they think we aren’t going to spontaneously murder them all.”

It’s mostly meant as a joke, but it’s not entirely wrong. Doctor Banner had said as much himself, just with kinder words. Bucky doesn’t know about Steve, but for himself, he isn’t sure that he can even rule out spontaneous murder yet. He’s not going to admit it out loud, but there are parts of himself that he’s scared of. He’s not sure that he’ll ever get over it, either.

“I think if we wanted to, we would’ve already done it.”

“I don’t think wanting to is the only option,” Bucky murmurs.

Steve looks at him, brows strung together in worry. Bucky still always tries his best to not push their conversations into very serious territory, but Steve now always _tries_ to. He knows Bucky hates it, and that he doesn’t want to talk, which is why he’s silently questioning him, hoping maybe he’ll get a sliver of a deep conversation from Bucky.

“Maria suggested we watch this show called ‘Game of Thrones’,” Bucky tells him instead. “We could go start the first episode?”

Steve gives him an annoyed look. Bucky is sure he’s about to complain, but their attention is drawn to the yelling at the doors of the cafeteria.

There is a man in a suit walking through and a few people trailing after him. One woman is shouting, “We actually need to get over to the hotel before we – “

“Got some stuff to do first,” the man says just as he looks straight at Steve and Bucky and smiles devilishly.

The man starts walking over and Bucky thinks about that knife that Steve always keeps in the pocket of his jacket.

“Boys,” he says, sitting down next to Steve. He snags one of the french fries and goes, “Heard you’d be here.”

“And you are?” Steve asks, wearing that menacing face he always uses when he talks to new people.

The man smiles brightly at them. “Truthfully, it’s refreshing to meet someone who doesn’t know who I am,” he tells them. “I’m Tony Stark.”

Bucky squints at him because the name sounds familiar, but it’s Steve who beats him to the punch. “Stark?” he repeats.

“My father talked about you a lot, Cap,” Tony says. “So, you better live up to all my hopes and dreams of what you’d be like.”

Steve stares blankly at him.

“Yikes. Guess they weren’t kidding about the whole brainwashed assassin thing,” he says, and even smiles at it, like it’s funny.

Underneath the table, Bucky balls his fists. “Do you have a reason to be here?”

He seems genuinely amused by Bucky’s words and the scowl on his face, which isn’t the typical reaction. “Got yourself a guard dog?” he asks Steve, but then turns to Bucky. “He didn’t tell very many stories about you. Sorry, champ.”

“I don’t remember him,” Steve says casually.

Bucky knows for a fact that he does remember. Steve’s told him a few stories with Howard in them, and that’s how Bucky knows the last name. He’s not sure if Steve is lying because he wants to fuck with him or if there’s a reason behind it, but either way Bucky has to keep himself from smiling at Tony’s disappointed reaction.

“That’s actually why I’m here,” Tony says. “They’ve been keeping you locked up here, and I’m arrived to be your prince charming and steal you away.”

Now, Steve and Bucky stare blankly at him.

Tony heaves out a sigh. “Whatever they’re trying to do here, it isn’t working. I want you to come to New York City and stay at my labs. The tech is better and Bruce won’t admit, but he doesn’t like it here,” he tells them knowingly. “Plus, I’m talking day trips back to your hometown. Good old Brooklyn? You remember that at least, right?”

The prospect of being permitted to take a trip out to Brooklyn seems almost unfathomable with the way they keep them locked up here at SHIELD. Bucky suspects, though, that it’s likely either of them could break out of the building, it’s just a matter of actually wanting to.

“Why should we even trust you?” Steve asks, crossing his arms over chest.

Tony smiles at this. “Just an offer. Dad would be rolling in his grave if he knew I didn’t help out his old war buddy and his… _friend_.” He gives Bucky an unimpressed once-over as he says it.

Bucky and Steve exchange looks, neither of them impressed.

“You should probably talk to Fury,” Steve tells him before standing up. He starts to walk away, but not before turning back and making sure Bucky is following him.

***

It takes a whole day, but sure enough, Bucky and Steve are called in Fury’s office and stared at for at least five minutes until they’re asked if they want to accompany Tony back to New York City. He doesn’t seem impressed about the idea, but he’s letting them choose, which is something to be noted.

Before Bucky voices his opinion on the matter, he glances over to Steve. He’s looking right back at him already, eyebrow quirked up in question. Bucky minutely shrugs his shoulders, hoping it comes off more interested than uninterested. Steve gives one affirmative nod to him and then turns to Fury and says, “We’ll go.”

***

On the morning before they leave to New York, Steve is quiet as he eats his breakfast. He’s not his usual chipper self like he always is even at the earliest of hours.

Bucky, slowly working on his bowl of oatmeal, gives Steve a strange look. “Do you not want to leave tomorrow?” he asks.

“What?” Steve says, clearly confused. It takes him a minute to realize Bucky’s more or less inquiring about his mood. “Oh. No, I want to go.”

Bucky takes a few more bites, expecting Steve to talk further, but he doesn’t. Listlessly, Bucky points his spoon at Steve and goes, “You are going to tell me what’s up, right?”

“I’m going to be away this afternoon,” he finally admits to Bucky. “I’m going to see Peggy.”

He almost asks who she is, but then it hits him. Peggy Carter, the woman from the museum. She wasn’t quite his lover, according to him, but could’ve been had he not fallen. Steve, usually open to talking about most of the past before HYDRA, keeps Peggy close to the chest. Bucky understands.

“Yeah?” Bucky chokes out in surprise.

Steve nods. “She lives around here, and Fury thought maybe I’d want to see her before I left.”

“You don’t seem very excited to go,” Bucky observes.

“I know I should. She can help me remember more, too. It’ll be a good trip but…” he trails on, face blank.

From across the cafeteria table, Bucky kicks his foot lightly. “I’m sure it will be fine,” and then, just to make Steve smile, “And, who knows, maybe you’ll fall in love with her again.”

Just as he expected, Steve does smile at this, eyes crinkling at the corners as he looks back down to his breakfast. “She’s ninety-three, Buck.”

“Hey, some people are into that sort of thing.”

Steve rolls his eyes and kicks Bucky’s foot back just as he had. “Very funny,” he scoffs. Then, finishing the milk from his cereal bowl, he stands up and gives Bucky a meaningful look. “I should be back before dinner. Try not to eat the whole kitchen while I’m gone, will you?”

Bucky nods, sending him a weak smile before he starts to walk out, broad back turned towards Bucky as he carefully slips through the crowds of employees. Bucky looks down to his half-empty bowl of oatmeal and decides to ditch it and head back to his bedroom.

He’s half-expecting to run into Steve on his way out, but he doesn’t. Instead, the elevator ride up to the floor he’s on is only full of agents he doesn’t recognize and who don’t bother to notice him. Right before he steps out, though, one of the agents’ faces catches his attention. He has short brown hair and slight stubble, his face set in a frown. Bucky’s not quite sure how, but he knows he recognizes him. He doesn’t get a chance to ask, though, because the elevator stops at his floor.

Admittedly, Bucky spends most of his time with Steve. They haven’t got many other options in terms of who to hang out with, but Bucky’s always enjoyed Steve’s presence, and is glad they actually get along so well. Now, though, with Steve gone, he’s not sure what to do.

When he gets back to his bedroom, he stands at the door and looks around. He’s about to sit down and write in his journal aimlessly (something that Doctor Banner highly suggests that Bucky only does when Steve’s not around) but then his eyes stop on the cardboard box that Sharon had sent over a day after their museum visit.

Creeping closer to it, almost cautious, Bucky peers into it to observe its contents. Sharon had given a box to both Steve and Bucky, telling them they were either their old belongings that the museum hadn’t put on display or things that Peggy Carter had donated. Before, Bucky hadn’t wanted to look through it because he still felt like the contents weren’t his belongings in the first place. Now, he thinks it’s about time he reclaims them.

The first things he plucks out, out of curiosity, are the two paperback books with torn covers and yellowing pages. One is _The Picture of Dorian Gray_ and the other is _A Brave New World_. Both titles spark a tiny bit of remembrance, but he can’t come up with what either of their plots are about. He must’ve liked them, though, because the pages are dog-eared and passages of text underlined in pencil.

On the inside of them, though, on the backside of the cover, James Barnes is written in with neat cursive handwriting. Bucky traces his fingers over the indents of the pen markings and thinks about how he must’ve written it in so many years ago. Somehow, they’ve ended up back in his possessions against all odds.

Next, he fishes out a bunched up piece of material he finds out is actually a button-up shirt. It’s a maroon color and appears to be worn out. He runs his hands over the collar and undoes the very first button, only to button it right back up. For a second, he has a bad idea to try it on, only to realize that it’s unlikely it’ll even fit anymore. The other Bucky was smaller than he was.

He digs at random for the next object, which happens to be a pocketknife. He stares at it for a few seconds before clicking open the blade and realizing there is still dried blood on it. He thinks maybe this was something Peggy donated, something he took to war with him. He’s not sure if Fury would be happy knowing he’s got a knife, but they’ve allowed him a razor for shaving, so this can’t be much different.

The last thing Bucky looks at it is a leather-bound journal. It’s ratty and still covered with dirt, most likely another relic from war. Most of the pages appear to be torn out, but when he flips through it, a few envelopes slide out from where they’ve been tucked into the pages. Bucky turns them over to find out that they’re all addressed to him, with a return address of Steve Rogers in Brooklyn.

He stares at his name written in Steve’s block handwriting (the same kind as Bucky had seen Steve write in just the other day) and his fingers itch to open them. They’re his letters, technically. He should be able to remember them, or at least feel entitled to read through them.

Instead, he places the envelopes back into the pages and the puts the journal on top of the two paperbacks and then puts the pocketknife on top of them. It’s his only belongings besides the few pieces of clothing he’s received while living here, and he intends to take them with him to New York.

He needs more time before he can read the letters, though, so he tries to forget about them.

***

When Steve gets back from visiting Peggy, he stands in Bucky’s doorway for a full minute in silence, face blank as he stares across the room before he finally cracks a sad smile.

“It’s okay that I don’t remember her very well,” Steve says slowly, words calculated and hurt.

Bucky’s almost too scared to ask, but eventually he goes, “Why?”

“She doesn’t remember me, either,” Steve tells him.

He’s hurting, and Bucky can tell he is. It isn’t something physical, either, like something they can overlook after years of training. It’s all emotional, something that neither of them are very good at dealing with after years of not having to.

Slowly, Bucky stands up from his desk and walks toward Steve, giving him enough of a warning with his body language to let him know what’s coming. He doesn’t flinch or move away (like Bucky probably would) and instead moves towards him. It feels much more natural than the last time when Bucky wraps his arms around Steve and pulls him close. Steve makes a choked sound before hugging him back, whole body melting into the touch.

Bucky isn’t sure what to say, so he hopes the hug will be enough.

***

Bucky wakes up with Steve’s hands wrapped around his collar, shaking him awake.

When he finally comes to, he realizes he had been yelling in his sleep. The nightmare he’d been having slips away, but he still flinches away from Steve’s touch, whole body stiffening and then curling in on itself. Steve’s even paler than usual under the bright florescent of the lights in his bedroom that he must’ve turned on.

“Jesus, Buck,” he says, scrubbing his face. “Thought you were dying or something.”

Bucky feels a little like he had been, too. He can still see the faces of the two people he had murdered, and his nightmare had only amplified the memory, made it even more unbearable than it had been before. He realizes then that he must’ve been crying, his eyes hot and wet when he rubs at them. Mostly, he’s embarrassed that Steve has to deal with this.

“Sorry,” he says, voice hoarse. “I’m fine. Just a dream.”

Steve gives him an annoyed look. “You don’t have to apologize. I was just worried.”

“I’m okay now. You can go back to bed.”

He’s almost surprised when Steve looks like he’s actually about to get up and leave it at that, but then he stops himself. “I have them, too, you know.”

Bucky pulls his knees against his chest and says nothing.

“At first, I would avoid sleeping all together to keep from having them,” Steve admits to him. “Now, though, I just try not to think about them afterwards.”

“Easier said than done,” Bucky mumbles, almost amused by how easy he makes it sound.

Steve, still perched on the side of the bed, gives him a long look. It’s his worried face, a crease in his eyebrows and eyes slightly squinted in Bucky’s direction. He’s used to this look. Instead of trying to initiate a deep, meaningful conversation, he instead stands up and goes, “Come on. I wanna find out what horrible thing Joffrey’s done next.”

When Bucky makes no attempt at standing up, Steve steals his comforter from him, wrapping it around his shoulders and playfully smiling at him. “I’m going to start it without you and I’m not going to tell you what happened,” Steve tells him, already turning and heading out of the room, Bucky’s comforter swishing after him like a cape.

Pulling on a sweatshirt before following after Steve, he finds him in the room a few doors down. He’s sitting in the middle of the couch, blanket still wrapped around his body, and fiddling with the remotes for the television. When he sees Bucky enter, his face lights up with a smile. “Knew my threat would work,” he singsongs.

“Just didn’t want for you to spoil anything for me,” Bucky tells him. He gently pulls at the blanket and goes, “Gimme some.”

Steve does, so it’s just barely wrapped around either of their shoulders, and queues up the next episode. Bucky still wants to think about the faces from his dream, but he forces himself to focus on the show. It works, too, because by the end of the episode Bucky’s asleep with his head on Steve’s shoulder.

***

They take Tony Stark’s private jet to New York City.

The flight is less than an hour long, and yet Tony manages to spend almost all of it talking about his building they’ll be staying in. It’s some skyscraper with a view of NYC to die for, and he has a whole floor just for the two of them, or at least that’s what Tony tells them. Bucky tries to pay attention, since the guy is being nice enough to help them out, but he’s distracted by the view outside the window.

It’s once they land and take separate cars to the building that Bucky starts getting nervous. He knows that him and Steve will be given quite a bit more independence here, and he’s worried that he needed to be carefully watched to keep himself from snapping. He won’t tell anyone, but he still doesn’t feel like he’s in control on some days.

“Wow,” Steve hums, face nearly pressed against the window. “Pretty amazing.”

It is, too. As they lurch through traffic, Bucky takes in the sights with wide eyes. He knows he’s probably been here, having grown up so close in Brooklyn, but seeing Manhattan now seems like it’s from a whole different world, and that his eyes have never seen it like this.

When they stop in front of the building they’ve slowly been approaching, with a bright “STARK” sign at the very top, Bucky and Steve exchange excited glances.

Before getting out, Steve goes, “You all good?”

Bucky stuffs his hands into the pocket of his jacket and nods his head. “Yeah,” and then, “You?”

Steve smiles at him and nods before reaching for the door handle.

They don’t get much of a tour of the building, but Tony does personally take them to their floor, gesturing grandly when they step into the living room. It takes a while before Tony does leave, but when he does (only because a woman comes and fetches him for something) he tells them that if they need anything to ask JARVIS. Just like that, Bucky and Steve are suddenly alone on their own floor in a billionaire’s building.

Bucky doesn’t understand how he can deserve this. He was a highly trained assassin and murdered so many innocent people, and now he gets to live in some luxurious tower. Bucky doesn’t know what he _does_ deserve, but it can’t be this.

Steve, though, Bucky knows he does deserve this. He was a war hero. Bucky was just a lousy sidekick who let his captain fall into the hands of HYDRA.

Bucky slouches into the couch, arms crossed over his chest and mostly wishing they could be back in DC. He thinks maybe coming here was a bad idea all along.

“You can’t actually be angry at a time like this,” Steve tells him knowingly, sitting next to him.

Bucky shrugs. “It’s just a lot,” he says. “Maybe it would’ve been better to stay in DC.”

“Are you kidding me, Bucky?”

“At least we knew how to use the TV there.”

Steve doesn’t make a sarcastic remark, which means he at least understands that it’s not just the new television. Everything is so new, and Bucky’s not ready for it all.

“How about we try it for a week,” Steve says, “and if you still don’t like it, we’ll ask to go back.”

It seems fair, even to Bucky. He knows, though, that if Steve likes it here better, Bucky will never mention wanting to go back again. For now, Bucky nods his head and agrees to the plan.

Steve smiles at him brightly. “And, hey, who knows, maybe when we figure out how to use the TV, they’ll even have Game of Thrones.”

Suddenly, the voice from the ceiling (who Tony had vaguely explained was JARVIS) goes, “If you need help with the television, perhaps I can be of assistance.”

Surprised and amused by the absurdity of it all, Steve and Bucky share one moment of shocked silence, and then burst into laughter, the two of them leaning against each other on the couch in a mess of giggles.

***

Bucky finds that New York City isn’t all that bad.

Staying in the tower could be worse. Their apartment is filled with things already, like the bookshelf or their closets or the kitchen. On the first morning, Steve had even woke Bucky up, excitedly telling him about how he made breakfast for the two of them all by himself. And once Bucky figures out how to navigate the building, he starts working out at the private gym and gets lunches at the cafeteria.

Only a few days after they move in, Bucky and Steve are just arriving to the gym, playfully shoving each other and laughing about something Tony had said earlier, when they spot a familiar face. Her red hair is pulled up into a high ponytail as she spars with a blond-haired man Bucky doesn’t recognize.

They watch, in awed silence, as she easily takes the man down, body working gracefully to pin him to the mat they’re working on. Her ponytail slips into the man’s face, and from where he is, Bucky can tell that he’s pretending to choke on her hair.

“You baby,” Natasha says, rolling off of him and then realizing that she has an audience. She recognizes them right away, though, already hopping off the floor to approach them. “Stark said that you were here, but I thought maybe you’d stay hidden in your rooms.”

It’s been less than a month, and yet Bucky feels like he’s changed so much since he saw Natasha last. He even feels slightly embarrassed by who he was before.

“Gets pretty boring,” Bucky tells her.

“Plus, Bucky cries if I leave him for too long,” Steve quips.

For a second, Natasha quirks at an eyebrow at them, looking unsure if it’s a joke or not. Bucky rolls his eyes and shoves at Steve. “I don’t cry,” he says, and then with a smirk, “Not that often.”

Natasha smiles at them just as the man she was sparring with comes to stand next to her. He waves at them awkwardly and introduces himself as Clint. Before either of them can say their names, he’s staring deeply at Steve and going, “Have we met before?”

“Probably not,” Steve tells him hesitantly.

Clint shakes his head, still staring. “No, I definitely recognize you. Maybe with stars and stripes? Maybe with a – ”

“Clint hasn’t been able to shut up about his big man-crush on you since he was debriefed on the situation,” Natasha explains to Steve.

“Hey,” Clint admonishes. “I’ll have you know it’s a real crush.”

Steve goes a bright red at this, mouth opening and then snapping shut as he struggles for words. Bucky burst into laughter at the sight.

“Stop being weird,” Natasha says to Clint, rolling her eyes. Then, with a smug smile directed to Bucky, goes, “Besides, I think he’s already taken.”

It’s Bucky’s turn to blush, but he plays it off much better than Steve. He shakes his head, pretending to seem more amused by the idea than anything else, and Natasha’s grin only widens.

“I should get back to kicking his ass,” she tells them, thankfully. “But, hey, you two are coming tomorrow night, right?”

They both stare at her unintelligibly.

“Stark probably forgot to tell you,” she hums. “We’re all getting together tomorrow. I’ll have him send you a text about it.”

Bucky and Steve just got their phones the other night, and although Tony had frustratingly talked them through the basics, Bucky still didn’t know what he was doing on it. He still nods, though, like he’ll know how to read the text.

Bucky watches them go, still stuck on her comment about the two of them. “That was…” he starts, not sure what to even finish the sentence with.

“She scares me,” Steve says.

When Bucky looks over to him, he’s grinning, and it only makes the two of them break into laughter.

***

“I think you should really consider it,” Doctor Banner, who now lets Bucky call him Bruce, says to him one afternoon.

They’re in the lab, Bruce penciling in things on a clipboard, but he looks over to Bucky seriously when he tells him that he should really meet with a therapist once a week. Bucky has been emphatic about ignoring his desires, knowing there is no way that he’ll agree to it. The last thing Bucky needs is long conversations about his feelings. Not even Steve can pull those from him.

“I don’t need it,” Bucky tells him, wiping sweat off from his forehead with the bottom of his shirt. He had been running with a slew of wires stuck to him for at least an hour in an attempt for Bruce to get a better grasp on the serum he’d been given by HYDRA.

Bruce, never believing Bucky’s act, only writes something down and then goes, “Steve is going to go.”

“Really?” Bucky frowns.

“Yes,” Bruce tells him. “Because Steve understands that it’s not healthy to bottle everything up. This is textbook stuff, Bucky.”

“I don’t do that,” he huffs. He does, but it’s not like Bruce really knows.

Sighing, Bruce places his clipboard down on his desk and folds his arms over his chest. “You’re free to go,” he says. “But I think you should talk to Steve about it. Ask him why he’s doing it.”

Bucky, making no promises, rushes out and heads straight back to his floor. Steve is curled up on the couch, some reality TV show playing quietly as he reads something on his new phone. Bucky walks in so quietly that he accidently scares Steve, who jumps when Bucky collapses down next to him.

“Thought you’d be gone longer,” Steve tells him, locking his phone and placing it carefully on the coffee table across from them.

Bucky’s about to make a joke, but then he catches the serious look on Steve’s face.

“How did it go?” Steve asks.

“Like usual,” he says, shrugging. “Let me guess, Bruce wants for you to try to convince me to go to therapy.”

Steve looks a little surprised, but schools his face back to normal before going, “He didn’t put it that way exactly.”

“I’m not going to. And you can tell him that.”

Steve frowns at him. “What do you have to lose?”

“My time,” Bucky says flippantly. “Which I’m not going to waste after years of being brainwashed.”

“That’s exactly why you should go. We were – ” Steve cuts himself off and leans in, eyebrows cinched with worry as he places a hand on Bucky’s arm. “What happened to us was horrible. Sometimes you act like it was nothing at all and that’s not true. They made us into – “

“No, they didn’t,” Bucky snaps, flinching away from Steve’s touch. “We’re _normal_. Maybe at first, maybe we weren’t, but now we’re fine. We’re just like everyone else.”

There’s a long moment of silence where Steve just stares at Bucky with a concerned expression on his face. “ _Buck_ ,” Steve says. “We haven’t even been outside without chaperones.”

This makes Bucky jump up, angrily grabbing his jacket off a chair and checking to make sure his phone is in the pocket. “Come on,” he spits at Steve. “We’re going out. We’re not locked in here. Tony said so.”

Steve looks twice as concerned as he did before, but slowly he gets up from the couch and pockets his own phone before following Bucky to the elevator. He leans against the glass, his arms folded over his chest. “You sure about this?” he asks.

Bucky realizes Steve’s not even nervous about leaving. He’s only nervous about Bucky. And he should be because Bucky is nervous. “I’m fine,” he lies stubbornly.

The thing is, he’s starting to feel a little shaky and he’s already putting his hands into his pockets, hoping to control himself just a little. His right hand can feel his pocketknife, though, the one that he found in the box. He had put it in the jacket, scared that someone would find it if he didn’t keep it on person. Now, though, he wishes it wasn’t in his pocket just as he decides to go outside.

He tries his best to ignore it as they get to the lobby of building. Before the doors open, though, Steve grabs his shoulder and goes, “Bucky, you’re not proving anything by doing this.”

Shaking him off and stepping out of the elevator, he refrains from just telling him to stay behind. He wants Steve with him, though. He doesn’t want to admit, but he figures Steve already knows. The lobby is full of people and Bucky skirts around groups of them waiting in line or just loitering. He doesn’t look back to make sure Steve is following him because he’s sure he is.

When he gets to the doors, though, he hesitates, his steps faltering a little as his hand meets the cold metal. He knows Steve is right behind him, probably already thinking that Bucky is going to back down, but Bucky forces himself to keep going and push the door open. He partially expects someone to be waiting to haul him back inside, but nothing happens as he walk a few steps further.

It’s only once he’s out the doors and takes a few steps until he takes it all in.

“ _Shit_ ,” Steve says quietly from beside him.

“Yeah,” Bucky agrees breathlessly.

They’re stopped in the middle of the sidewalk, annoyed pedestrians having to walk around them as they stare up into the sky at the tops of the skyscrapers or into the busy traffic. Something about the sight makes Bucky’s chest swell with happiness despite all the anxiety he’s feeling. He has no idea where to go, and yet everything feels so familiar to him.

He thinks he has his past self to thank for that feeling.

“Where to?” Steve asks then, and when Bucky looks over, he’s smiling widely.

Clearly, Bucky hadn’t made any plans, but he spots a café down the road and decides that it’s a safe option. “Let’s get coffee,” he says firmly. Normal people buy coffee.

After getting a confirmation nod from Steve, Bucky heads for the café. The streets are chaotic and lined with people. It’s all a little dizzying after their past month being kept so solitary except for public lunches in cafeterias. Bucky’s whole body is thrumming with nervous energy, and he’s sure his hand is still shaking from where it’s stuffed in his pocket. He keeps telling himself it’s just coffee.

The café is just as crowded. It’s a small space, so everyone is bunched up as they get into the line to order. Bucky blinks at the menu boards and tries to comprehend what it all means. It should just be coffee, though. Everyone buys coffee. He can do this.

“What are you getting?” he asks Steve, trying to keep his voice steady.

Steve is squinting up at the menu. “I don’t really understand most of this.”

Well, that makes two of them.

Bucky decides they have to have black coffee, but his order starts to become half of his worry. The café is busy, and each little noise nearly makes him flinch. He’s thankful that at least Steve is right next to him, so close that he can feel his body heat. He tries to concentrate on it, but even the slight jostle of someone’s backpack as they leaves sets Bucky off. He’s trying so hard to ignore the knife in his pocket.

 _I’m in control_ , he keeps telling himself, _I’m in control_.

He’s not sure if he’s telling himself the truth or not.

He’s only one person away from giving his order when the noise of a machine turning on startles Bucky. It has to be one of the drink machines, but when Bucky hears the loud buzzing, his heart skips a beat and his legs almost buckle. The memory that comes to mind brings phantom pains to his left arm and leaves him breathless.

“I need to – I’ll just. Be right back,” Bucky stammers, stumbling out of the line and quickly heading towards the bathrooms in the back.

Fortunately, one of the two rooms is open, and Bucky locks himself inside, his hands fumbling to lock the door. He still doesn’t feel safe, though, as he leans against the door and tries to breathe. He’s not in control, and he knows it. Quickly, he takes out his pocketknife and throws it to the ground, trying to distance himself from it. He knows it’s futile, though. He’s as much as a weapon as it is.

He spends so much time and energy desperately trying to forget his past, but everything hits him suddenly. He’s a monster, and he knows it. So many people died because of him, and all their faces haunt him. There’s no way to forget it all, either. Sure, he can be lulled into forgetfulness for a few hours by a book or Steve talking to him, but that doesn’t mean it’s erased. It’s all deep inside him, sewn into ever fiber, all of his evil.

Someone knocks on the door, and for a panicked moment, Bucky thinks it could be the manger or something, but then there’s a voice outside. “Bucky,” Steve says, sounding worried. “Are you okay?”

He hates hearing his name at this moment. He wonders if he evens deserves the name after everything he’s done.

“Come on. Let me in, Buck, please,” Steve says urgently.

Since he hates to hear him like that, Bucky slowly unlocks the door and cracks it open enough for Steve to slip through and close it behind him.

“What happened out there?” Steve asks him, looking Bucky over like he’s scared he’s injured.

Bucky smiles sadly. “Are you happy you were right?” He’s not normal. He’s known this, but he had desperately hoped he was wrong.

“No,” Steve says quietly. “I wish you would’ve been right.”

Bucky looks down, to how he’s toeing at the pocketknife of the ground. Carefully, he nudges it towards Steve. “I need you take it.”

Confused for a moment, Steve crouches down to pick it. After a few seconds of examining it, including extending the blade and staring at it, he looks surprised. “I remember this,” he tells Bucky. “You found it while we were in France.”

Bucky doesn’t remember this, but he figures he’s probably right.

“You probably killed more rabbits with this thing than people,” he tells Bucky conversationally, fiddling with it in his grip.

Bucky is mostly uncertain about the memories Steve has gotten back, but sometimes he says things like this and it makes Bucky think he has more than he’s letting on, just like Bucky. Practically everything from his time at war is still a mystery to him. Steve, though, clearly remembers it well.

“I thought maybe I’d feel better having it but – ” Bucky stops himself, and then just shakes his head.

Pocketing the knife, Steve nods. “It’s okay. I’ll keep it safe.”

They are quiet for a minute, Steve still looking Bucky over with concern. He doesn’t know what to say that will ease his worrying, so he says nothing. Instead, he focuses all his efforts to making his breathing go back to normal and hoping his hand will stop shaking.

After a moment, Bucky says, “I’m a monster, Steve.”

He has to be. After everything that’s happened to him.

“Then I am too,” Steve tells him quietly.

“No, you’re not. It’s not the same. You were Captain America, you were good. You were – ”

Steve steps closer, voice urgent when he goes, “It doesn’t matter who I was before. The same thing happened to both of us. If you’re a monster, then I am too.”

Bucky knows he isn’t saying it because he actually thinks he’s a monster. He’s just trying to prove a point, and something about it makes him angry.

“I let you fall,” Bucky says, feeling broken and hurt. “I was supposed to protect you.”

It wasn’t just because Steve was his captain. It took Bucky a while, but he knows now that he’s always protected Steve. Before the war, he knows he protected him from bullies he picked fights with or his constant stream of illnesses. He was always there for Steve, and he knows it. Then, though, he let him fall, and ever since, he hasn’t been able to protect him from anything.

Steve looks sick when he hears this, though. “Do you even remember it? When you fell?”

Bucky shakes his head. It’s one memory he’s happy he hasn’t gotten back.

“I do,” Steve tells him. There’s an almost angry edge to his voice, and his hands are balled into fists at his sides. Bucky feels just as scared as Steve looks about what he’s about to say. “I didn’t fall. I jumped.”

His words echo in Bucky’s head harshly.

“ _What_?”

“You fell, and I guess I thought – I _hoped_ – that I could save you if I jumped,” Steve admits. “I chose this. You didn’t. I let _you_ fall, not the other way around.”

It’s a lot to take in, but almost immediately, Bucky is lightly shoving Steve. “You didn’t choose this.”

“Then you’re not a monster,” he replies, just as fast.

They stare at each other, unguarded and vulnerable, and Bucky is the one to step forward and push Steve into a hug. He feels on the verge of crying as whispers, “You’re an idiot,” into Steve’s neck and presses closer. Steve’s laugh is muffled by the fabric of Bucky’s jacket, but it makes Bucky smile even if all he can think about is Steve jumping after him.

They stay that way for a few minutes until there is a loud banging on the door that makes the two of them instantly pull apart, like they’ve been doing something illicit. Bucky looks to the ground, feeling a little embarrassed for initiating the touch, but then Steve is grabbing his arm and going, “Come on, let’s get back. We have a dinner party to get to.”

***

They show up to Tony’s dinner party late.

It takes them at least an hour to even prepare for it. After taking a shower in hopes of scrubbing off the incident in the café, Bucky walks to his closet with a towel around his waist and tries to guess at what to wear to a dinner party with Tony Stark. He comes up blank.

It’s only after he’s consulted Steve (who know even less than Bucky does) that they decide to ask JARVIS. He tells them what to wear down to the color of their socks, and Bucky and Steve don’t question any of it, only dress themselves and head out to the elevator.

They’re gliding through the floors when Steve asks, “Should we have brought something?”

“Like what?” Bucky says, smirking.

“I don’t know,” he hums. “Maybe some wine? Or flowers?” He pauses. “I could’ve made something. Like lasagna.”

Bucky scoffs. “Steve, do you even know how to make lasagna?”

“I could’ve learned,” he argues just as the elevator doors open.

The noise of the party spill out, and Steve and Bucky exchange nervous glances before walking towards the noise. In the living room, a group of people are lounging around on the couches and laughing about something. Bucky’s surprised to recognize all of them. It’s a much smaller party than he expected, and the intimacy of it all makes him twice as nervous.

When they walk into the room, the conversation quiets, Tony jumping up to greet them. “You’re late,” he tells them bluntly. Steve opens his mouth, probably about ready to apologize profusely, but Tony cuts him off. “You’re just lucky you’re the guests of honor.”

“ _Guests of honor_?” Bucky echoes, voice strained.

“Don’t sound so excited,” Tony quips. “You know, it’s not that often I have real war heroes at my dinner table.”

Bucky looks to the ground. He’s not a war hero. Steve is. Even if Steve wants to blame himself for Bucky’s death or for his own misfortune, he won’t ever be a monster.

“So, have you met the whole gang?” Tony asks, voice a little facetious. They nod, and Tony seems disappointed by it. “I’ll have you know that I had great introductions prepared.”

From behind him, Natasha rolls her eyes. Clint is seated next to her on the couch, and on the loveseat adjacent, Bruce is watching them with an amused expression on his face. They’re the only ones, and Bucky wonders if they’ll be more arriving once the food is served, but he doesn’t ask.

“Hey, come here and look at this,” Tony says, clearly not sure what to do with Steve and Bucky’s quietness.

Both of them wordlessly follow Tony to a bookshelf in the corner. There are a few framed photographs on each shelf, and Tony grabs at a black and white one and holds it out for them to look at. Bucky blinks a few times until he realizes it’s of Steve. He’s not in his Captain America suit, but in worn-looking army fatigue. He has his arm wrapped around a smiling man that Bucky doesn’t recognize.

“Howard,” Steve then quietly says. “We were good friends.”

“Yeah? This make you remember?”

Steve makes a face. “I remembered Howard.”

“He talked about you all the time,” he explains. “I probably know more about you than you do.”

“Doubt it.” Steve looks back down to the photo and frowns. “Where is he now?”

Tony clears his throat and places the framed photo back on the shelf, next to a few others. “He’s dead.”

Bucky zones out Steve’s quick apologies and looks at the other photographs. His eyes are instantly drawn to one in color. It’s a portrait an older-looking couple, small smiles on both of their faces. Bucky knows their faces, and he doesn’t know why.

“Who are they?” Bucky asks, interrupting something Steve is saying about Howard.

Tony seems surprised, like he forgot Bucky was even there, but then goes, “That’s them. Mom and Dad.”

This confuses Bucky further, and he looks between the two photos, trying to find the distinguishing features between the two men. They’re clearly the same person, but Bucky doesn’t understand how he’d recognize the couple. He squints at it harder, trying to will his memory to work for once, but he remembers nothing.

When he looks back up, Tony and Steve are looking at him strangely. “Sorry, did you say something?” he asks awkwardly.

Tony shakes his head. “Should we eat?”

They head into the dining room, and Steve casually places a hand on the small of Bucky’s back as they walk. He falters a little at the touch, and Steve gives him a worried look, but Bucky calms him with a quick quirk of his lips. The touch alone helps lull Bucky into a sense of comfort, and he hopes that the rest of the night will go well.

It’s not until the first course is served, everyone gushing about the food, that Bucky stills, whole body going cold.

He realizes how he remembers the couple.

Somehow, he had missed that he’s been having nightmares about their deaths for weeks.

***

He knows he needs to tell Steve.

Steve already knows something is up with him, and spent most of the day trying to coax the admission out. Bucky refuses to say, but doesn’t even bother hiding the fact that there is something. It’s useless pretending like he’s fine. Besides acting like a mess all day, Steve and him are attuned to each other after all the time they’ve spent together.

After a grueling hour of Steve’s prodding, Bucky leaves him to sit in his room. He only regrets it once he’s sitting on the edge of his bed with his hands tangled in his lap and looking all around for something to do.

The two books that Bucky had found in his box are sitting on the bedside table. He’s already read both of them, staying up late on two separate nights to devour the pages. All of his underlined passages felt like clues to a past life, and Bucky would read them over and over trying to decipher their bigger meanings.

Now, he just wishes he would’ve paced himself.

At the bottom of the stack, Bucky’s journal is still waiting to be read, the three letters tucked away secretly in its pages. He’s been avoiding them, hoping maybe he’ll remember their contents so he won’t have to read them at all, but he hasn’t been that lucky. He doesn’t have anything to do right now, and he doesn’t want to have to think about the faces of Tony’s parents and what he’s done, so he tries to take Steve’s advice of distracting himself as he grabs for the journal.

Slowly, he flips through the sparse pages of the journal until he comes to the letters. He takes them out and runs his fingers along the ripped edges where Bucky must’ve excitedly torn them open in a rush. He doesn’t know what to feel this time as he plucks the first letter out.

It takes a while for Bucky to get through reading all the letters. He has to read each one two or three times, just to let the words sink in. He tries to imagine how the Bucky who went to war felt getting these letters and reading Steve’s clean handwriting. Bucky almost misses Steve just at the thought, even though he’s right at the end of the hall.

Everything in his head is so mixed up. Part of him is trying desperately not to think of what horrible things he’s done in his past, and the other half is trying desperately to remember how he once felt. The letters send him into a catastrophic frenzy of thoughts. All of Steve’s words seem so pointed and carefully chosen, and yet Bucky can’t figure out what they’re supposed to mean. He’s scared to understand, too.

It’s practically two in the morning when he quietly tiptoes through the halls to find Steve awake in his own bedroom, the door cracked open and his light on. Bucky doesn’t bother knocking when he enters because he knows that Steve probably heard him coming the second he left his bedroom. Just as Bucky expects, Steve is looking up in anticipation for his arrival when he does walk in, arms crossed over his chest with the letters tucked away carefully into his grip.

Steve squints at him, and is about to say something, but Bucky cuts him off with a sharp look. Then, he walks the few steps to Steve and wordlessly places the worn letters down on top of the blankets in front of him. He doesn’t want to speak, at all, about anything, so Bucky leaves after, heading back to his own room and getting into bed.

He stares at the ceiling and thinks about the last paragraph of one of the letters.

“ _The apartment is so quiet without you. Sometimes late at night, I’m still expecting you to come through that door with that stupid grin you always get on your face after you’ve had a few drinks, and for you to sit next to me on the couch and fall asleep on my shoulder because you always think you’re not as drunk as you are. I want to be with you, and not just because I wish I was there fighting for our country, too. I miss you, sometimes stupidly and sometimes with an aching chest. But I really miss you, Buck. Come home in one piece for me_.”

***

Bucky goes from only avoiding Tony, to also avoiding Steve.

He goes through great lengths to make sure he doesn’t end up in a room alone with Steve for two whole days. He even works out with Clint and Natasha to keep himself from somehow being roped into spotting Steve on the bench press. At lunch, he grabs something from the pantry and locks himself in his bedroom, queuing up something to watch on his phone by himself. He even sets up an appointment with his new therapist, Bruce all smug about it.

The worst part, though, is that Bucky misses Steve. He’ll see him the hallway and instantly feel that gravitational pull towards him. He feels stupid for avoiding him, especially to the great lengths he does, like hiding behind corners or running through the halls. He’s more scared than anything. He’s scared to tell Steve about what he’s done and to dissect the letters with him. He’s scared, so he’ll avoid it all.

It’s on the third day, though, after Bucky’s picked up some breakfast and is walking aimlessly through the tower eating it that he runs into Tony. At first, Bucky is shaken just by seeing his face. He instantly thinks of his poor parents, and their last moments. For a terrifying second, Bucky wonders if Tony knows it was Bucky all along.

It doesn’t seem like he does, however, since he’s constantly bright and chirpy with Bucky. When he sees him today, his whole face lights up and he walks a little quicker to keep up with him.

“Been meaning to talk to you,” he tells Bucky, casually slinging his arm around Bucky’s shoulders. He moves away from the touch instantly. “Right, right. Brainwashed ex-assassin, gotchya. But, hey, look, I’ve already talked to your better half about this but since he said you two are going through something right now, I didn’t think he’d pass on the message.”

Something about this whole exchange makes the pain and guilt of Bucky killing Tony’s parents eases just a tiny bit.

“Steve and I aren’t – ”

“Yeah, _semantics_ , alright,” he hums, shushing Bucky. “So, I’m not sure if you remember, but tomorrow is a pretty important holiday.”

Bucky squints at him. He doesn’t even know the date.

Tony doesn’t seem surprised. “It’s Halloween. Not sure if you celebrated that in the thirties, but it’s a big deal now. I just so happen to throw a little party every year and you’re coming. It’s great because you can go in costume and no one has to know who you are.”

“I don’t have a costume.” Translation: I don’t want to go.

“Already got you covered. I’ll have it sent to your place before the party, and all you have to do is show up.”

Bucky feels like he probably owes it to the guy to at least show up to his party. He’s more concerned about what his costume could be.

“I should get going but you – ” He point to Bucky’s face. “You should definitely think about getting a haircut.”

As he’s walking away, Bucky brings a hand up to touch his hair. It is long, but he’s mostly been keeping it out of his face with the help of elastic bands he found in the bathroom, so he rarely thinks about it. Frowning, he throws the rest of his breakfast away and heads back towards his bedroom.

He’s just getting out the elevator on his floor when someone lunges at him, shoving him against the wall. I t happens so quick but Bucky has time to realize that it’s just Steve, eyes angry as he presses against him. Bucky goes slack in his grip and stares at him, waiting for an explanation.

“Stop ignoring me,” Steve tells him then, voice hard as he presses him even further into the wall. “I don’t know what’s going on with you, and if you don’t want to tell me then I’m not going to be able but to help. But stop ignoring me.” He sighs then, suddenly dropping his arms and letting Bucky lean against the wall like he’s still being pushed against it. “I miss you,” he admits quietly.

Bucky’s heart is racing and he feels little breathless as he stares at Steve. The skin where Steve had been touching him feels like it’s burning, even if he’s backed away.

“Okay,” he finally breathes out, nodding his head. “I missed you too.”

There is a timid moment of silence, but then Steve is smiling and pulling Bucky close to hug him this time. He laughs shakily into his shoulder and goes, “Jesus, you scared me.”

Bucky’s scared to even hug back for a minute, but something in his chest pangs at the thought that Steve missed him just as much Bucky did, and he holds him just as tightly. His lips feel cracked when he smiles, like he hasn’t done it in years instead of a few days. He lets himself have this moment because he knows Steve won’t want to hug him, let alone be with him, after he finds out what he’s done.

***

When Bucky gets his costume, he stares at the packaging for at least five minutes before rushing to Steve’s room with it in his grasp. Of course, when he throws open the door huffily, Steve is just getting his costume on, a strange look on his face as looks at himself in his mirror.

“Really?” Bucky groans when he sees it.

Steve, predictably, goes red and gives him a shy smile. He’s dressed in a very simplified version of Captain America’s suit. It’s a padded red, white, and blue thing that makes Steve looks ridiculous. He poses, though, when he sees Bucky looking him over, putting his arms on his waist and standing up tall. Bucky grimaces.

“Hey, it’s not so bad,” Steve tells him, walking over to pick up a shiny shield. He slips his arms into the straps and holds it up heroically. “Tony said it’s the real deal. Somehow got his hands on it.”

“Seriously? Can you tell?”

Steve nods. “Definitely. I remember it in a weird way.”

Bucky walks closer so he can run his fingers down the metal. It’s clearly been cleaned, but there are still marks from bullets or worse. Bucky runs his hand down it and tries to remember it in action. Most of the war is still unknown to him, and anything he comes up with are from propaganda films.

“Let’s see your costume,” Steve says, putting down his shield and trying to reach for the bag in Bucky’s other hand.

Bucky holds it behind his back and tries to hide it. Steve tries to lunge forward to grab it, and Bucky races around the room, clutching it close to his chest as Steve runs after him. After Bucky nearly trips on the side of Steve’s bed, it gives Steve just enough time to jump at him and send them both to the ground in a pile of sharp limbs.

“God, your elbow hurts,” Bucky moans, trying to dislodge Steve’s arm from his gut.

“Of course it does,” Steve tells him knowingly. “I’m a deadly assassin.”

“You almost cried looking at a picture of Clint’s dog yesterday.”

Steve makes an indignant noise and then snatches the costume bag from him and bursts into laughter when he sees it. He has to look away and giggle into Bucky’s chest for a full minute before he holds it up again and chokes out, “This is amazing!”

Bucky shoves him off from him and sits up, snatching the bag back from him as he collapses into another fit of giggles. On the cover, there is a picture of a man that vaguely resembles Bucky in the same outfit that his mannequin had been wearing in the museum. The costume is simply labeled ‘Captain America’s Sidekick’.

“ _Sidekick_ ,” Steve says, pointing to the packaging. “I’m sorry, Buck.”

“I should be getting the proceeds from this,” he huffs.

Steve slips the costume out of the packaging and holds up the dark blue coat, brown pants, and a belt with a gun holster on it. He unbuttons the first button on the jacket as he says, “Put it on. It’s only fair.”

“Tony can’t actually expect us to dress as ourselves.”

“He thinks it will keep anyone from recognizing us,” he explains. “Something about how no one would think we were stupid enough to dress as ourselves.”

Bucky rolls his eyes.

“Put it on,” Steve whines.

Huffing, Bucky grabs the costume and awkwardly faces away from Steve as he shuffles out of his pants and slips into the loose brown pants and then puts the coat over his plain t-shirt. He’s fiddling with the belt when he realizes Steve is watching him from where he’s sitting, casually leaning against the bed with his head cocked in Bucky’s direction.

He sighs. “This is ridiculous.”

Steve breaks into a big smile, clearly amused by the costume. He looks him over a few times, where Bucky almost feels nervous under his gaze, before shaking his head a little. “I think the original looked better,” he declares, standing up and stepping closer to Bucky so he can fiddle with the collar.

The moment makes Bucky hold his breath and wonder if Steve read the letters he gave him.

Dropping his hand to his side, Steve and Bucky look at each other for a few seconds before Bucky turns to get a look at himself in the mirror. In the reflection, he looks startlingly different than he did in the old black and white pictures of him he’s seen in this very outfit. Stupidly, he realizes now why Tony said he should get a haircut.

He flicks away to see Steve watching him from behind his shoulder. He meets his eyes in the mirror, and in a moment of vulnerability, Bucky says, “I still sometimes feel like he’s a different guy. That it wasn’t really me who wore this outfit.”

“I know what you mean,” Steve says, nodding his head slowly. “But it’s real. I know it is.” He laughs sadly then. “Hell, I even remember writing you those letters.”

Bucky’s surprised to hear this, like hadn’t expected for Steve to read the letters all along. “You read them?” he asks nervously.

“Didn’t really need to, but yeah.”

Bucky thinks about the connection to Steve he had been so sure about when SHIELD had first rescued them. He was so scared that he had been making it up, or worse, Steve hadn’t felt a thing. Now, though, he thinks that Steve hasn’t been as open as he thought he had been. He’s almost positive it’s real, not just because of the letters or even the memories, but the way that Steve is looking at him through the mirror. Bucky knows he feels this too.

Clearing his throat, Bucky goes, “We should get going.”

Steve nods, the moment falling away as he backs up and retrieves the shield he’s placed next to the bed. Bucky sets his shoulders and waits for Steve at the doorway, smiling softly at how ridiculous they probably look.

***

The party is much more wild than their casual dinner party. Instead of a few close friends, the party if swarming with all kinds of people all dressed in over the top costumes. Music blares and the whole place is lit with orange bulbs, casting a creepy glow over everyone’s faces. Steve and Bucky stay close and sip on rum and cokes even if the effect of alcohol is lost on them, and try to blend into the crowd. It’s not that hard, either, they find. It turns out that Captain America is a popular costume choice, and they nearly run into a different Captain at every turn. Some of them even compliment Steve’s shield and ask him where he got it (and Steve always shrugs and smiles like it’s some big secret).

Despite the fact that they’re mostly on the outskirts of the party and sticking close to each other, Bucky thinks it’s going well. He still scared of the moments he feels as though he has no control over himself, but he’s surprised to find how comfortable he actually does feel. In the crowd, he feels like he could be anyone.

They’re not exactly joining in the party, though, until they spot Clint, who is sitting on one of the couches in the corner all by himself. Bucky and Steve head over, happy to have an excuse to sit in a quieter part of the party. Clint spots them as they get closer, whole face lighting up as he laughs at their costumes.

“Genius!” he shouts at them over the music, gesturing towards the costumes.

Although Bucky has no idea what his costume is supposed to be, he finds himself going, “Thanks. Your costume, too.”

Clint makes a face and then smirks. “You don’t even know what this costume is, do you?”

Both Bucky and Steve are used to not knowing pop culture by now, so they easily shrug their shoulders to see the disappointed look on Clint’s face.

“Star Wars, man! No one’s made you watch Star Wars? Okay, next week we’re hanging out and watching it and – ”

“Don’t do it,” Natasha interrupts, handing Clint a plastic cup as she sits down next to him. “He’ll talk through the entire movie.”

Clint takes the drink, but quickly places it down next to him so that he can make a few hand gestures that take Bucky a few minutes to realize is sign language. Clint had vaguely mentioned using hearing aids the other day, but now he watches him and Natasha have a whole conversation without a single word.

“Clint doesn’t like wearing his hearing aids during parties,” Natasha explains. It’s then that she must realize what they’re wearing and cracks up, nearly spilling her drink. “Please tell me this was Tony’s idea.”

Bucky crosses his arms over his chest. “Obviously.”

“This is the real shield,” Steve says proudly, beaming as he shows it to them.

They stay in their quiet corner and talk for a while, getting to know each other better as the party rages on around them. Bucky eases into it and gradually becomes more and more comfortable as the conversation progresses. He wonders if this is what it’s like to be normal.

He’s smiling brightly and laughing at something Steve said when Tony walks up to them with shot glasses precariously in his grip. Bucky’s whole stomach drops and he stiffens. He had somehow forgotten about it all, but Tony’s face is enough to remind him.

“You’re already plastered?” Natasha asks, clearly amused.

Tony falls into the couch next to Bucky, some of the shots sloshing on his shirt. The answer is clearly yes.

“I brought shots for everyone,” he announces brightly, offering one to each of them.

Bucky takes his and downs it before everyone clacks their own glasses together in a toast. He’s hoping maybe it can somehow make everything about this situation better, but he knows it’s useless. It’s only worsened when Tony slings an arm around him and leans in with a smug smile on his face.

“You love the costumes, right?” he asks.

Bucky frowns, silent as ever.

“Everyone is dressed as Captain America,” Steve tells him.

Tony barks out a laugh at this. “But, dare I say, you are the most convincing of all of them.”

“Just like the good old days,” Steve quips.

Bucky’s throat tightens. He wishes his pants or jacket had real pockets because he desperately wants to tuck his hands into them.

“Dad would’ve thought this was hilarious,” Tony says now. “You know, I used to hate how much he talked about you sometimes.”

He tries so hard to ignore the words, but they set him on edge. All he can think about is how Steve and Howard must have been incredibly close if he talked about him so much. Steve’s never going to want to see him ever again once he finds out.

Steve shrugs at this, but Tony keeps going, voice grating and making Bucky sicker with each word. “No, really. It was like he wanted me to live up to you or something.”

“Poor Tony,” Natasha says sarcastically. “Had to live up to Captain America. Must’ve been rough.”

Tony looks vulnerable for a few seconds, face blank, and then he smiles softly. “Probably just wanted what was best for me,” he says sincerely.

Bucky’s been fidgeting with the collar of his jacket, feeling incredibly hot, and the pain in Tony’s voice sets him off, and he’s quickly jumping off the couch and accidently knocking down his cup that he’s placed on the ground near his feet. Everyone seems confused.

“Sorry,” Bucky mumbles. He ambiguously gestures to the direction of the party. “Bathroom.”

He can feel Steve’s eyes on him as he disappears into the crowd. He’s actually thinking about finding the bathroom, but he stops himself at the thought of Steve following him and finding him pathetically falling apartment in another bathroom stall.

Instead, he heads for the elevators and huddles in the corner. Once on his floor, he goes straight for his bedroom, closing the door but keeping the lights off as he quickly takes off the coat and sits in the corner, arms wrapped around his legs tightly. He can feel the cool metal of his arm through the pants and he’s disgusted by it.

He doesn’t know how long he’s sitting there, but he snaps to attention when he hears the telltale signs of Steve approaching. He knows the way his footsteps sound on the floor, the way he steps almost like he’s trying to make no sound at all but aborts halfway, like he trying to make some noise. Steve’s trying to kill old habits, and Bucky wishes he could do the same.

There’s no knock on the door, and instead Steve barges in and heaves out a relieved sigh when the sliver of light from the hallway illuminates Bucky sitting in the corner.

“Jesus, Buck,” he breathes out, slowly approaching to sit down next to him and wrap an arm around him. “Should’ve just told me you were getting that way again. I would’ve left with you.”

Steve thinks it’s because of the party. Bucky wants to keep letting him think that, but he also wants to get it over with and just tell Steve. He hates hiding it from Steve.

“That’s not why,” Bucky tells him, voice hoarse.

Steve swallows audibly. “What’s been going on with you lately?”

It’s a stupid question, and they both know it.

“ _Steve_ ,” he tries to start, but he can’t. The way Steve has his arm wrapped around him makes Bucky so scared with the knowledge that once he tells Steve he’ll never want to touch him again. Bucky’s not sure I he’s ready for all of Steve’s touches to cease. Barely realizing it, Bucky’s started crying.

“It’s okay. Whatever is, Buck, it’s going to be okay,” Steve coos.

“No, it’s not.”

“Bucky – ”

“I killed them,” he interrupts. “I killed Tony’s parents. I choked his mom and then I – I beat Howard to death. I just – Steve, I _killed_ them.”

Bucky had hoped telling Steve would make things more bearable, but he only feels worse once he’s admitted it. Steve’s silent for a few moments, and Bucky’s just waiting for something horrible to happen. That’s why he starts when he feels Steve move so he’s sitting across from Bucky. He places his hands on either of Bucky’s shoulders. “That wasn’t you,” he tells him firmly.

“It was,” Bucky tells him. “I see it every night, too. In my nightmares. And now, just all the time.”

Steve shakes him roughly, voice more urgent and hurt now. “That wasn’t you. They _made_ you do that.”

“I still did it.”

Steve pulls him forward so that he can hug him, arms tight and warm around him. Bucky doesn’t deserve the touch, but he falls into it, fingers curling up tightly into the material of Steve’s costume. Into his neck, Steve keeps repeating, “I don’t care.”

In his arms, Bucky realizes that he’s longing desperately for the past. He wants to wake up in their dirty, little apartment and have Steve right next to him in bed, snoring loudly and face peaceful. He’s never felt more connected to his past than in this moment, the one where he wishes he could have it all back, before he had done all of this evil.

***

When Bucky wakes up, he’s still in Steve’s arms. For a few brief seconds after he’s opened his eyes, the sunlight from outside the window spilling into the room and lighting it up and Steve’s quiet breathing hot against his neck, Bucky knows nothing past that moment. Everything is so quiet and peaceful and if Bucky closes his eyes, he could be anywhere.

The night before has to fall back on him, though, and he becomes wide-awake at the thought of it. Steve didn’t hate him or never want to touch him again, but Bucky’s still scared there is leftover resentment over the fact that he killed one of his friends. Bucky wouldn’t be able to blame him for it, either.

Bucky tries not to wake Steve as he reaches to grab for his phone on the bedside table. It’s nearly noon. Bucky hasn’t slept so long or without nightmares since he was rescued. He knows it’s because of Steve. He vaguely remembers sleeping with Steve pushed against his chest during cold winters. Bucky had been surprised last night when Steve had wrapped him up in his arms and pulled him to bed. It had only taken a few minutes for Bucky to fall asleep.

He’s placing the phone back when Steve wakes, nuzzling his face into Bucky’s neck and muttering something he doesn’t catch.

“Nearly noon,” Bucky tells him softly.

Steve groans. “Don’t wanna get up yet.”

“I could try making us breakfast?” Bucky offers.

“Please,” Steve says, scoffing. “You’d burn down the whole tower.”

Bucky turns in Steve’s arms, so he’s facing him when he makes an annoyed face. “I would not.”

Steve smirks. “You would. I know how you cook, buddy.”

Bucky’s never cooked at the tower, or when they were in DC. He’s clearly talking about from before. Something about Steve remembering makes Bucky break into a smile. “You’re right,” he finally admits, laughing softly.

Steve smiles a sleepy, dopey smile back at him. They’re quiet for a few moments, just looking at each other with their matching smiles and saying nothing. Bucky makes the horrible mistake to flick his eyes down to Steve’s mouth, the way his red lips are quirked up into that smile. All he wants to do is kiss him.

Bucky knows this longing. Suddenly, he realizes that he’s known this longing for years and years. What he doesn’t know is the taste of Steve’s lips, and he’s sure it’s because he’s only ever known longing.

Now, eyes quickly flicking up guiltily, he knows he can’t take, no matter how much he wants to. Steve was never his before, and definitely isn’t his now.

Bucky sits up, hoping that Steve somehow missed his momentary lapse in thought, and goes, “You should start breakfast before I try and burn down the place.”

It takes a moment, but eventually Steve gets up and heads for the kitchen, his bare feet patting against the hardwood. Once he can hear the sound of something sizzling in a frying pan, Bucky quickly walks over to his desk and pulls out his battered journal from the drawer. He quickly starts thumbing through the blank pages, looking for one entry in particular.

Sure enough, at one of the last pages, there’s the beginnings of a letter. Instead of “Dear Steve” at the top, there’s just a solitary “S”. His handwriting is sloppy and rushed, and like he didn’t want for anyone to read it after he wrote it (and maybe he did), but Bucky reads it perfectly fine.

“ _I wish I would’ve kissed you before I left. Why didn’t I kiss you? I had so many opportunities and now I feel like I lost them all and I’ll never get the chance again. I’m not sure if I’m coming home, or if I do come home I’ll be the same person. I’m really sorry about that. I just wish I –_ ”

It cuts off abruptly, the last few sentences crossed out too darkly to make out. Bucky runs his fingers over the pen markings. He had hoped maybe he had made this all up, but it’s right here, in his journal.

He never had Steve, and it’s as clear as day now.

He snaps the journal shut when he hears Steve yelling for him in the kitchen. Quickly, he hides the journal again and goes to the kitchen. Bucky finds Steve at the stove, poking at their eggs with a spatula. When he sees Bucky he smiles at him and goes, “Got you some orange juice.”

Bucky ignores the glass of orange juice on the counter and instead watches Steve carefully. His back is turned as he finishes the eggs and he’s humming something under his breath. Bucky never got to kiss Steve, and suddenly it seems unbearable. He feels like he owes it to himself to be forward and honest with Steve because he didn’t get the chance to before.

“Steve,” he says, suddenly nervous.

“Yeah,” he hums, not bothering to turn around. He does, though, after a few seconds where Bucky doesn’t say anything. “Buck?”

Bucky doesn’t know what else to do except to take the few careful steps so he’s at Steve’s side and then to just kiss Steve.

He’s frozen for a few painful seconds, but then melts into it, putting a hand at the back of Bucky’s neck to pull him in closer. Bucky sighs into the kiss. He thought maybe if he kissed Steve the longing would be gone, but as he tangles a hand through his hair, it only worsens.

He forces himself to break off the kiss and take one shaky step backwards. Steve looks surprised, but a smile quickly slips in its place.

Before Steve can say anything, Bucky is quickly going, “I just wanted to know.”

The bight smile slips off Steve’s face. “Know what?”

Bucky’s not sure how tell him how he had wanted to know if he still felt the same way about Steve and if Steve wanted to kiss him back.

He knows now.


	4. Chapter 4

**PART THREE**

 

The first time that Steve and Bucky take the subway, they get on the wrong line three times.

Now, though, instead of standing in front of map with all the other tourists for upwards to fifteen minutes, they manage to find their right train going in the right direction and even know which stop to get off at. It’s partially from their past mistakes and partially because of Clint’s advice. It had only taken one little comment from Steve about his frustration over the crowds in downtown NYC for Clint to offer up several quieter places only a few subway stops away.

Now, Steve and Bucky slip through the doorway of a small bookshop crammed full of books. It had been something Bucky had wanted to do for weeks now, and they had specifically made sure there was a shop in the area before taking the subway over. Seeing all the books instantly puts Bucky at ease even if the store is so cramped with each bookshelf only a few feet from the next.

They go through the store at random, not bothering to figure out the complicated organization system. Instead, Bucky pulls books out at random and reads the back covers hoping to find something interesting. Steve follows after him, there not being enough room between the bookcases for the two of them to stand shoulder to shoulder like usual. Bucky is grateful that he’s staying close, though.

He’s gotten better at crowds and public spaces, which Steve is quick to credit to the few therapy sessions that Bucky’s begrudgingly attended. The sessions are good for him, and he knows it, but he also thinks that he’s getting better in public because he’s pushing himself to be.

They haven’t talked much about Tony’s parents except for a long conversation where Steve adamantly told him that he shouldn’t tell Tony about it. Bucky wasn’t planning on it, but part of him had wanted to just come clean. He didn’t expect Steve of all people to tell him to keep it to himself, but he figures that Steve is usually right.

Slowly making their way through the store, Bucky excitedly turns to Steve. “They have a whole section for sci-fi, Steve,” he gushes, smiling widely as he turns to dig through the books.

“Now we’re never getting out of here,” Steve teases from beside him.

Bucky rolls his eyes, even if he can’t see and starts adding books under his arm. Once he realizes he can’t hold any more of his prospective purchases, he turns to hand the stack he has to Steve but stops when he catches the way he’s staring down at a book with a frown on his face.

Bucky leans in to get a look at the cover, and when he does, he only goes, “ _Oh_.”

It’s Steve on the cover. He’s dressed in the Captain America suit with his shield proudly in front of him. It looks to be a candid shot instead of the various carefully done propaganda photographs. Right above his head, the text reds, “Captain America: More Than a Soldier”.

“There’s a book about me?” Steve says quietly, it coming out like a question.

“Obviously,” Bucky tells him, and then, “Have you never Googled yourself?”

Steve gives him a look before his eyes flick back down to the book. He flips it over to inspect the back cover, and there’s another picture that Bucky is surprised to find has him in it as well. It’s one he’s seen before, of the Howling Commandos all lined up.

“Holy shit,” Bucky says, voiced awed. “Do you think there’s stuff in there about me?”

In a mocking tone, Steve goes, “ _Obviously_.”

Bucky ignores him and scans the shelf to find two other biographies about Steve and instantly starts to tuck them under his arm. “We gotta get these.”

“No way,” Steve hisses hastily. “We’re not buying books about me.”

“Fine. _I’ll_ buy them,” he says, snatching the one Steve still has in his hands and heading for the counter with his pile.

Bucky’s shoving them towards the cashier when Steve catches up with him, a scowl on his face. “ _Bucky_ ,” he warns, clearly not liking the idea.

“Required reading,” he tells the cashier knowingly, ignoring Steve.

She smiles sweetly at him and checks out the books. When she’s bagging them up, she double takes when she catches the cover of one of the biographies and looks up to Steve’s face. “Wow,” she says, sounding awed. “You look just like Captain America.”

Steve blushes a deep red and opens his mouth to say something but nothing comes out.

“He gets that a lot,” Bucky finally says, trying desperately not to laugh.

“Maybe you’re related,” she says coyly as she holds out the two plastic bags to them.

Bucky smiles at her and takes the bags. They’re halfway out the store when Steve stops and turns to her. “We’re not related,” he assures her in a choked voice.

The cashier seems surprised and gives him a confused smile as Bucky drags them out of the store. Once they’re a safe distance away, Bucky breaks into laughter. “ _Smooth_ ,” he says to Steve, who is clearly annoyed.

“You know we’re supposed to be discreet,” he reminds Bucky.

“Pretty sure that was the opposite of discreet, buddy.”

Steve glares at him for a few seconds but eventually breaks into a grin.

They get back on the subway stand at the back of the car, their bodies touching casually. Bucky doesn’t like the subway, and Steve knows it (and Bucky thinks that he’s not awfully fond of it either, but that he won’t say anything about it) so he tries to keep from anyone else having to touch Bucky.

“Do you think the world’s ever going to find out about us?” Steve asks quietly.

Bucky shrugs. He had been expecting it for a long time, but no one has said anything about the two of them making a statement. Bucky wants to think it’s just because SHIELD is still working through all the legal hitches, but he’s scared it’s because they don’t want everyone knowing about what they’ve done.

“They’ll have to eventually,” Steve says. “Someone’s bound to figure it out.”

“Why do you care? You dying to meet all your adoring fans or something?”

Steve looks unimpressed. “It just seems weird to me.”

“I wouldn’t worry too much about it.”

They lapse into a comfortable silence, the two of them swaying into each other with each turn and stop. It’s been two weeks since they kissed and they’ve been ignoring that it ever even happened. Bucky had thought about bringing it up during one of his therapy sessions, just to see if even his therapist could wade through the spider webs of his situation, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. It’s not exactly the thirties anymore, but Bucky still has reservations about bringing it up since he’s always kept it so close the chest.

It had been awkward at first, though, and they had to spend a few miserable days making uncomfortable small talk before they eventually slipped back to normal. For the most part, Bucky’s fine with that, but part of him still wants to explore it. He knows he should keeps things as they are, though, because he still really only remembers patches of his own life, and it seems wrong to keep forging a future with the past still partially unknown.

There are still moments, though, like when they’re getting out of the subway station and Bucky gets distracted by looking at Steve, that he wishes things could be different. His face is red from the cold and his lips are shiny from the way he keeps licking them. When Steve realizes he’s staring he smiles and quirks an eyebrow at him. “What?”

Bucky reaches out to pull down Steve’s winter hat so that it’s practically covering his eyes. “You look stupid in that hat,” he tells him with a smirk.

Steve fixes the hat and shoves Bucky a little. “It’s cold, you jerk.”

Bucky shoves him back. “Punk.”

***

Instead of a normal check-up, Bruce puts Bucky through what feels like an obstacle course in the gym. He watches carefully and writes things down as Bucky does jumping jacks or does weights or (even if he still doesn’t like to) jabs at the punching bag.

By the time he’s finished with all the strange requests from Bruce, he’s hunched over with his hands on his thighs and trying to catch his breath. He’s definitely canceling the jog he was going to go on with Clint.

“You did well,” Bruce tells him nonchalantly.

Bucky scoffs. “What exactly was I doing?”

“Can’t tell you yet,” he explains. “But hopefully soon. You’re still going to your therapy sessions, right?”

Bucky nods.

“Twice a week?”

He nods again.

“Good, then I’m all set here,” he tells him with a flash of a smile. “Have a good day, Bucky.”

“You too,” he hums, snatching his water bottle and heading for the locker rooms.

He runs into Steve on his way out. He’s got his workout clothes on and a gym bag thrown over his shoulder, and Bucky knows Steve’s about to go through the same hell that Bucky just did.

“Jesus,” Steve says when he gets a look at Bucky. “Is Bruce making us do a triathlon or something?”

“Basically,” Bucky mumbles. He slaps Steve’s shoulder. “Good luck.”

After a quick shower, Bucky heads back to his floor so he can get something to eat and start in on one of his new book purchases. He’s only through the door when he finds a pile of Steve’s dirty socks on the floor and Bucky drops his gym bag to the floor to find a hamper and get together some laundry to do.

When they had first moved in, they were assured that someone would come in and clean for them, but Bucky and Steve had vetoed it right away. They didn’t want anyone else in their business and they didn’t usually mind cleaning up.

Somehow, though, Bucky always gets stuck doing laundry after finally getting fed up with the way Steve will leave his dirty clothes everywhere. He goes through his room and then to Steve’s, rummaging around to pick up all the random articles of clothing spread around the room. He picks up a sweatshirt next to his bed and pauses when he realizes there is a sketchbook underneath it, a few pencils lying on top of it.

Bucky knows it’s probably snooping, and he really shouldn’t, but he can’t help but to sit down cross-legged on the ground and look through the sketchbook. The first few pages are blank, but then they’re suddenly full of random things. He sees little snatches of objects around their floor, like the dresser in his bedroom or the window in the living room. There are other things, too, like a random pair of eyes or a pair of hands. A whole page is filled with the view outside the living room window, quick lines showing the horizon of buildings in fascinating detail.

What really surprises Bucky is how often he finds his own face. Bucky didn’t even know Steve was drawing again so he’s never even posed for Steve, and yet Steve’s drawn him perfectly. Most of them are just his face, but others are of him lounging in the living room on the couch, and one is of him leaning against the wall on the subway.

There’s a big gap of empty pages, and Bucky is about to put it back where he found it, but then on one of the last pages he finds another sketch of himself. It’s different from all the rest, though. Instead of Bucky’s long hair and the quiet, serious look on his face, this Bucky is in a dress uniform and smirking deviously. It’s from back in Brooklyn, when he was on leave. He remembers how much he hated how scratchy that uniform was.

Something about the drawing makes Bucky feel twice as bad about going through the sketchbook in the first place. He puts the sweater back down over it and hopes it makes it look like he was never there at all.

***

For once, Bucky isn’t the one who has a nightmare.

He isn’t sure what he had been dreaming of before, but when he comes to, still in the living room where him and Steve had been marathoning movies, he blinks blearily until he realizes what woke him up. In the glow of the blue screen, Steve is fast asleep next to him. He’s shaking, though, and his face is shiny with sweat. He’s muttering too, but Bucky can’t make anything out of what he’s saying.

He’s never seen Steve have a nightmare before, so he’s worried about his reaction upon waking. Carefully, Bucky shakes him. “Hey, Steve, you’re dreaming,” he says quietly, hands on either of his shoulders. “You’re okay.”

When he does open his eyes, gasping loudly and instantly reeling away from Bucky, it takes him a few minutes for his eyes to focus in on Bucky. “I didn’t…hurt you, right?” he asks after a few seconds, his voice hoarse and pained.

“No,” Bucky assures him, concerned why Steve would even ask in the first place.

Steve nods, face blank as he sits up and clears his throat. He’s staring at the ground intently and Bucky’s not sure what to do. He’s half tempted to find something else for them to watch, but he’s not sure if that’ll even work for Steve.

Bucky stands up and clicks off the television. With the light from the window, Bucky easily maneuvers so that he can tug on Steve’s shirt to lead him to his bedroom. Steve, groggy and uncoordinated from sleep, leans against Bucky as he leads him to his bed and covers him with the blankets. Before Bucky can leave to his own bedroom, though, Steve looks to him and goes, “Stay.”

So, Bucky does. He slips into bed next to Steve so that their legs are touching. Steve has his curtains open, so the light from outside shines in, and Bucky can see that Steve has his eyes open, staring at the ceiling.

“I found your sketchbook the other day,” Bucky tells him quietly. He’s not sure why he says it, but it gets the reaction he wants.

Steve looks over, not even surprised. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Bucky says. “Didn’t know you were drawing again.”

“You remember me drawing from before?”

Bucky snorts. “All the time. We used to sit on the fire escape and you’d sketch me. You remember that?”

“Definitely,” Steve assures him, turning over so that he’s facing Bucky. “Those were the glory days.”

“I mean, it had its drawbacks,” Bucky says, smiling softly.

“The internet _is_ nice.”

They stare at each other in silence for a few moments, smiles on either of their faces. Bucky thinks about their kiss two weeks ago, like he does more often than he admits. Bucky knows that Steve wanted to kiss him too, and now he’s left wondering just how much Steve cares for him, and if it’s anything compared to how Bucky feels. He’s scared to find out, so he doesn’t say anything. Now, though, he wants to lean in and kiss him again, like maybe he’ll find all his answers in the taste of Steve’s lips.

“Sometimes I wish that we could’ve been born in this generation,” Steve admits. “We could’ve went to college in the city and lived together and had a dog and went to those hipster cafes. Wouldn’t have had to ever worry about all the stuff we did.”

It’s hard to imagine it, but Bucky thinks he would like that. The two of them with clean slates and no messy pasts. Bucky can practically imagine their shitty apartment in modern times, and the sound of the dog barking at the ambulance going by and the taste of the expensive coffee. He wishes it were true.

Bucky quirks an eyebrow. “A dog?”

“A big dog. Maybe a labrador.”

“You think about this a lot?”

Steve huffs out a breathy laugh. “I have a lot of free time, what can I say.”

The smile that was on Steve’s face slips off. His eyes look past Bucky, face blank and stare hollow. Bucky hates to see it. Usually Steve is so careful about the way he presents himself. He’s always cheery and always the optimistic one between the two of them.

“Steve,” Bucky says quietly. Steve glances over. “What were you dreaming about?”

He knows he shouldn’t ask, but he wants to know what’s shaken Steve so much.

“Cryo,” he says, voice carefully devoid of emotion. “When they wake you up from it. How cold everything is.”

Bucky almost shivers at the memory. Cryo had almost grown to be a safe place for him, but it clearly wasn’t for Steve.

“I don’t ever want to feel that cold again,” Steve says.

Steve’s hands are tucked into his chest and balled into fists. Bucky looks at them for a few seconds before moving to cover them with his own hands. Somehow, Steve’s fingers are cold, like his mind tricked him into thinking he really did just come out of cryo. Bucky’s hands had been carefully stowed under the blanket, and it’s made them warm so he can hold them to Steve’s fists.

“You won’t have to ever again,” Bucky tells him quietly. He won’t.

Steve stares at their hands with his eyebrows furrowed. His face softens, though, after a few seconds, and he smiles at Bucky. “I could say the same to you,” he says.

Bucky knows what he’s trying to tell him. He doesn’t want to be who was ever again, but he knows part of that person is still in him. He’s still a weapon, and his left arm is a constant reminder. He doesn’t want to feel cold again, either, but he’s not sure if he has a choice in the matter.

“Maybe,” he whispers.

He realizes then that his thumb is slowly rubbing up down on Steve’s fingers that have since uncurled from their fists.

***

The first clue that something strange is happening is that Natasha shows up on their floor unannounced.

She can’t technically go to their floor without one of them telling JARVIS to let her in, but it’s not like her to show up randomly. She rarely comes over, and when she does Clint accompanies her and it’s to watch a movie or eat dinner together.

Bucky and Steve are half-watching an episode of House Hunters when she gets in, the two of them curiously peering over their shoulders as the elevator door slides open. She walks all the way to the couch across from Steve and Bucky without saying a word until she catches what it is they’re watching. “Wow, you two really live an exciting life up here, huh?” she asks, smirking.

“It’s a new episode,” Steve protests, crossing his arms over his chest.

Natasha scoffs. “Yeah, okay,” she hums. Then, face serious, she goes, “Tony’s going to be here in five minutes.”

Bucky blinks at her a few times before he turns to Steve, suddenly panicky at the thought that Steve told her, or worse, she found out by herself. Steve seems calm and doesn’t glance back at Bucky when he asks Natasha, “Why?”

Natasha settles back into the couch dramatically, rolling her eyes and crossing her legs. “He’s got this horrible plan he’s going to try to pitch to you. I told him you’re not ready, that it’s too soon, but he thinks otherwise.”

“What’s the plan?” Bucky asks, slowly realizing that this must not be about what he’s done.

“He’ll explain,” she says with a wave of her hand. “I just wanted to remind you that you can say no. He’ll want you to say yes, but you can always say no.”

Steve and Bucky stare at her in confusion. “Natasha, what are you talking about?”

She stands, giving the two of them an exhausted look. “I need to leave before he gets here,” she tells them as she walks to the elevator.

Once the doors close behind her, Bucky and Steve exchange confused glances. “I don’t like this,” Steve says, sighing as he leans forward to click off the television for Tony’s arrival.

“Do you think he knows?” Bucky asks, just because it’s still looming over him – and always is.

Steve shakes his head. “I doubt it. I think if he knew we wouldn’t still be here.”

He says it so casually so it’s easy to see that he’s barely thinking about what he’s saying. Bucky knows he shouldn’t take it personally, but something about the words make him flinch and look away. What he’s done is bad enough to warrant Tony kicking them out.

“Buck,” Steve says quickly, realizing what he’s done. “I didn’t – ”

Just then the elevator doors open and out walks Tony. He doesn’t need permission from JARVIS like Natasha. Something about that makes Bucky nervous.

“Here are my favorite super soldiers,” he says with a chipper voice, sitting right down on the same sofa Natasha was in. “How are things around here?”

Steve and Bucky look to each other before either of them says anything, but Tony beats them, pointing accusingly between the two of them and saying, “You still do that. The – you know – ” There is more vague pointing before he rolls his eyes. “You’re still close.”

“Why wouldn’t we be?” Steve asks.

Tony has that same look on his face that Bucky’s therapist gets when he talks too much about Steve. She had even gone as far to say that Steve and Bucky’s relationship was too codependent, which only made Bucky cagey and closed-off for days. There could be some truth to it, but Bucky and Steve are the only ones who’ve been through what’s happened to them.

“Just an observation, Cap,” Tony says. He’s the only one who calls Steve that, and Bucky knows for a fact that Steve isn’t a big fan of it but he’s too nice to say anything about it. “Actually got some important things to talk about.”

Bucky tries his best not to look alarmed. “What is it?”

Tony takes a big breath and sits forward in his seat, like he’s getting ready to tell the most important story ever. “I know you’re both still a little touchy about the whole… _situation_.”

“Tony – ”

“Let me talk first,” he interrupts, holding one finger up. “So, as I was saying, I know you’re still touchy but recently we found three different HYDRA locations that had previously been undetected. So, I’ve been thinking about putting together a team to take them down. Could easily get some shield agents to do it, but I thought that it seemed a little impersonal, you know?”

Bucky squints at him. “Are you asking us to help you destroy HYDRA bases?”

Tony holds out his hand, like he’s gotten to the best part of the story. “Exactly! Figured if you could do it before you could do it again. And who doesn’t love a little bit of revenge?”

They couldn’t do it the first time, though. They let HYDRA get them before they even finished the job.

The real question Bucky has is how Tony could ever trust them. He doesn’t ask that. He’s smart enough not to.

Steve is quiet beside him. When Bucky turns to look, he’s frowning. Bucky can already tell he doesn’t like the idea. He’s trying to organize his thoughts before he speaks.

“I had Bruce do a little check-up for me and I had a chat with your therapists and we’re, for the most part, all in good shape,” Tony assures them.

It explains the hell that Bruce had put them through, but Bucky is stuck on the idea that Tony’s been chatting with his therapist. Just the other day Bucky had thought about bringing up what he did to Tony’s parents to his therapist. Now, he’s incredibly grateful he didn’t. “What happened to confidentiality?”

Tony makes a vague gesture with his hands. “Not like they told me anything. All I needed to know was if you’d be ready for a few missions. They seemed to think you’d be able to handle it.”

This seems strange to Bucky. He’s definitely made progress since he started his sessions, but he doesn’t understand how someone can think that he could be trusted with weapons or be fit enough to help on a team. He doesn’t trust himself, but the thought of being able to take down the people who did this to him, who made him this way, is enticing.

Steve still hasn’t said anything, and Bucky knocks his foot against Steve’s, giving him a pointed look when he glances over. Bucky won’t agree without knowing what Steve wants. He tries to tell Steve this silently, and Steve only gives him another frown. They exchange looks for a few seconds, a silent conversation, until Tony waves his hands.

“Yeah, still here,” he tells them. “I can give you time to think about it but not much. The bases are all functional, and the longer we let them sit the worse it can get.”

Bucky nods his head when Steve looks at him, clearly trying to gauge if Bucky wants to do. He quirks an eyebrow at him, as if to ask, “You sure?” Bucky nods again.

Steve still doesn’t seem impressed by the idea, but he nods back and then turns to Tony.

“We’ll do it.”

***

“Race you in,” Steve says suddenly, throwing down his gym back to sprint towards the gym’s entrance.

Bucky curses under his breath and runs after him, his hair that he hasn’t pulled back yet whipping behind him. Steve wins by only a few inches, throwing his arms up victoriously and bursting into giddy laughter. Bucky crosses his arms over his chest, and Steve throws him a smug smile. “You’re a sore loser,” he says.

“And you’re a cheater,” Bucky grumbles.

“Not true,” Steve says, still smiling. “I can prove it to you when we spar.”

Bucky feels his own smile fall off his face. To prepare for the missions, Tony had put together a mandatory workout schedule, which included sparring. Since moving into the tower, Bucky had avoided sparring at all costs. He even pointedly ignored the punching bags. He doesn’t want to feel like a weapon, not anymore, but he has to be one for the missions.

“You don’t have to spar with me,” Steve says quickly. “I’m sure Natasha or Clint or even Tony would.”

Bucky nods his head. “I will.”

“You sure?” he asks seriously. Bucky nods again. “I promise I won’t go too hard on you.”

Bucky scoffs. “ _Please_.”

They do some warm-ups and lift weights for at least a half hour until Steve motions to the mats. Bucky stiffens but forces himself to stand up and follow him over. Steve is rolling his shoulders when he quirks an eyebrow at the way Bucky stands awkwardly in front of him.

“You don’t want to do this,” Steve points out.

“I’m just nervous,” Bucky assures him. He tries not to look down to his left arm. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Steve grins at him. “Don’t think that’ll be a problem. I’m a good fighter.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and sets his shoulder.

“Seriously, though, Buck, just tell me if you want to stop.”

Bucky wants to roll his eyes again but instead only lurches forward with the first punch. Steve is quick, just as Bucky expected, and easily deflects it. Something about Steve’s whole demeanor changes with that one punch, though. The look on his face reminds Bucky of before, when he didn’t even know his name, but only knew him by his blond hair and the sharp blue eyes.

Mostly, they’re equal matches. Bucky feels out of shape and awkward, but he easily gets back into the swing of things, like there’s just a switch inside of him that is always ready to fight. It should feel disheartening, but Bucky feels the adrenaline of fighting and only wants to keep doing it until he wins, like the desire is programmed into him. He realizes that it might be.

Bucky, distracted by his thoughts, gets knocked to the ground and Steve easily maneuvers on top of him, his legs straddling Bucky’s hips and hands holding Bucky’s arm back. Bucky accepts his defeat, deflating under Steve’s grip. They’re both out of breath and sweating, Steve still on top of Bucky. They don’t say anything for a few heated seconds, and Bucky catches the way that Steve’s eyes flick down to his lips, only to instantly look back up, a hint of embarrassment on his face. Bucky knows how easy it would be to lean forward and kiss him. They both want it, and Bucky’s not sure why he won’t just let himself have it.

Steve smirks and leans back. “Told you I didn’t cheat.”

“I let you win,” Bucky replies instantly.

Standing up, Steve watches as Bucky sits up and hugs his legs to his chest. “You okay?”

Bucky knows he shouldn’t, and that he should just keep it to himself or at least for his therapist, but Steve is _Steve_. Bucky wants to talk to him. So, he honestly says, “I like fighting. Do you think that means something?”

He’s still a monster, he knows he has to be.

Steve shakes his head, though, crouching down to look Bucky in the face when he adamantly says, “This is survival. It’s not to kill for the sake of killing. There’s a difference.”

Bucky hasn’t thought of survival in a long time. He knows Steve’s right. He’s not cured, but he does stand up, and get back into position. “You ready to lose?” he asks, shifting back into their playful banter.

They spar for a few more rounds, until Bucky has pinned Steve down a few times. By the end, they aren’t pulling their punches as much as they were in the beginning, and it’s starting to get rougher and rougher. They finally decide to take a break when Bucky’s pinned to the floor again, head lolling back with defeat. Bucky’s lazily watching the way that Steve licks his lips and pushes back his bangs from his sweaty forehead.

Bucky knows he doesn’t deserve it, that he shouldn’t touch someone like Steve with his dirty hands, but he can’t help but pull him down by the collar of his shirt so he can slot their lips together. Steve sighs into the kiss, the grip on Bucky’s wrist loosening. Bucky can taste the salt from the sweat above Steve’s upper lip, and chases the taste as he kisses deeper. It’s only when Steve pulls back from the kiss that Bucky realizes that they had started slowly rocking against each other.

“We shouldn’t,” Steve tells him, his voice suddenly low and gravelly, like when he first wakes up.

Bucky desperately wants to keep going, to run his hands over Steve’s skin and feel everything he has to offer, but Steve’s words have him reeling away, easily getting out from under his grip. “Punching bags?” Bucky suggests after clearing his throat.

Steve looks hesitant, but eventually nods and follows him to the few bags that are at the other end of the room. Slowly, Bucky methodically tapes up his hands, Steve silent next to him. Bucky wants to ask why they stopped, but he’s too scared Steve will confirm all his fears, that Bucky shouldn’t ever be allowed to touch Steve like that, so he keeps his mouth shut.

It’s only after Bucky’s thrown his first few punches that he makes eye contact with Steve, who’s just standing idly at the bag next to his. He looks defeated. “ _Buck_ ,” he says cautiously, voice strained.

Bucky drops his hands, fists uncurling at his side. He stares back, unsure of what to do. Steve takes a big breath before he slowly walks over to Bucky, crowding him against the wall beside the row of bags. He leans in and kisses Bucky, all their urgency from before melting away. Steve is slow and sweet with the way he kisses him.

He pulls back a little, so their lips are just barley touching, and then asks, “Did we do this before?”

Bucky shoulders sag at the question. “We didn’t,” he tells him honestly, worried Steve won’t want to continue. “Or at least I don’t think we did.”

Steve looks relieved to hear this, though. “So, you really want me, right?”

“Of course,” Bucky assures him, almost wanting to laugh at how absurd Steve sounds. How could Bucky not want him?

“Good,” Steve hums before leaning back in to kiss him more.

He holds a taped hand to Bucky’s cheek and the other to his waist, fingers creeping under Bucky’s tank top. Bucky wants to feel his fingers on his skin, but everything is cut abruptly short when someone is clearing their throat a few feet away.

They both jerk away from each other, which only makes Natasha more amused. “Clint owes me ten bucks,” she says casually, rolling her eyes.

Steve and Bucky exchange small, relieved smiles.

***

Bucky can’t stop thinking about the mission.

Part of him is scared and the other part of him is aching for revenge. He’s scared of that second part. He tries to justify his anger, and tries to tell himself that they made him this way. They made him a weapon without thinking that one day he might use it against the very people who made him like that.

He tries to hide his feelings from Steve, but he always manages to pick up on Bucky’s moods. It only takes a couple of days for Steve to realize he’s not going to get a deep conversation with Bucky about his feelings, and so he takes a new approach.

“Let’s go to Brooklyn today,” he announces, snapping the book he’s reading shut.

Bucky looks up from his own and frowns. They’ve been talking about going to Brooklyn for weeks. It’s been on Bucky’s mind ever since Tony suggested they could take daytrips there, but every time he’s thought about suggesting it, it seemed too much. They’re comfortable travelling around the city, but going to Brooklyn is different.

They’ve kept saying they’ll go to Brooklyn, but they’ve yet to actually do it.

“Today?” Bucky asks. It’s only a little after noon, and they’ve already done their work out session for the day, so they technically can. It seems so sudden, though.

“Yeah, why not?” Steve says, like he’s convincing himself. “You still want to go, right?”

Bucky shrugs. “Sure.”

“Then get ready.” Steve is already halfway across the room, throwing on his coat and slipping his phone into his pocket. Bucky stays where he is and watches the careful way Steve puts on his hat and then a pair of thin gloves. It’s not even that cold out, but he remembers what Steve said, about never wanting to be cold again. Steve breaks him from his trance with a quirked eyebrow. “You coming?”

Bucky sighs as he gets up, following Steve’s lead and slipping on his jacket. “Do you even know how to get there?”

“The F line,” Steve tells him assuredly. “Then a bus. We’ll figure it out once we get there.”

Bucky’s surprised by this. Steve must’ve looked this up before.

They walk to the subway station a few blocks over, and Bucky feels like he’s thrumming with nerves the entire time. Above him, the sky is dark and looming, and Bucky hopes it isn’t a bad omen. He’s wanted to go back home for a while, and he knows he has to do it at some point.

Herald Square is buzzing as it usually is, and Bucky realizes he’s unconsciously stepped closer to Steve after they’ve gone underground and scanned their metro cards.

Once on their train, they sit in the back of the car and listen to the ambiance of the passengers. It’s a long trip, at least an hour, and Bucky watches the car fill and empty over and over at each different stop. The closer they get, the more nervous Bucky becomes.

A stop before they get off, Bucky quietly asks, “Do you think we shouldn’t do this?”

Steve squints in confusion. “Why not?”

“Well,” Bucky hums, stalling as he tries to think of a way to explain how he’s feeling. “We’ve changed so much. And Brooklyn probably has too. It’s not going to be anything like we remembered and – ” _It’s going to be just as disappointing as Bucky feels about himself_. He used to be someone of substance, but now he feels like only a fraction of the person he once was. He’s almost certain that Brooklyn will feel the same way.

Steve looks at him for a long moment, forehead creased and mouth twisted in thought. Finally, he leans in close to Bucky and puts a hand on his thigh. “You’re right; Brooklyn is going to be different,” he says carefully. “It’s not going to be the way we remember it was but it doesn’t matter. It’s still going to be home, and I’ll love it no matter what.”

Bucky knows the words are pointed, that Steve had picked up on Bucky’s feelings without him articulating them. Steve’s words comfort him a little, though. He doesn’t deserve Steve, not his presence or his love, but he’s eternally grateful for him.

Nodding, suddenly unsure of how to respond, Bucky just stares back. Over the speakers, their stop is approaching. Steve smiles at him brightly and stands, offering up a hand for Bucky. “You ready?”

Bucky thinks he might be.

He grabs onto Steve’s hand and lets him hoist him up.

***

“It’s going to rain,” Steve says as they walk out of the subway, head craned back so he can stare into the dark sky.

The sun is just going down, poking through the high rises as it makes its descent. Bucky leans into Steve as they walk and smiles at him. “You a meteorologist now?” he asks, aiming a playful smile at him.

Steve only rolls his eyes to this and smiles to himself.

Their trip to Brooklyn was just how Bucky had expected it to be. Everything that Bucky actually remembered about his hometown was all gone. The grocery store they used to frequent, and the dance hall, and even their apartment complex had all disappeared and been replaced with something else. Even though Bucky had still been disappointed a little, something about Brooklyn still seemed like home. He couldn’t recognize anything, but something about being there felt like coming home.

After aimlessly strolling the streets for a few hours, they had finally decided to go to the diner they stumbled upon before coming back to the tower. The meal had been quiet and Bucky had noticed that neither of them had been very talkative all day. Bucky suspected it wasn’t just the bittersweet homecoming, but also the first mission that was rapidly approaching.

Now, though, it all seems far away as they walk through the crowded streets. Bucky still bristles at every accidental touch, but he’s starting to like the crowds. He can be anyone inside them, and no one cares about him or his past.

They’re a still a few blocks away when Bucky feels the first raindrop hit his hand. Then, while glancing up, another hits his cheek.

“Shit,” Bucky mutters. “We should’ve brought an umbrella.”

Steve rolls his eyes. “You scared of rain now?”

“It’s cold, you asshole.”

“Bet you wish you had a hat now,” Steve singsongs playfully.

Bucky tries to grab for the hat, but Steve moves away at the last moment, breaking into a slow run as he weaves through the busy sidewalk. The rain is starting to come down harder when Bucky rushes after him, laughing to himself as he nearly runs into everyone around him. Steve is laughing when he turns back to catch Bucky right on his heels, but as he’s looking back he runs straight into someone in front of him.

Bucky catches up, trying to hold in his laugh as Steve apologizes profusely to the gruff, unhappy man he ran into. Steve is still trying to apologize to the man when he starts walking away, and Bucky takes the moment to steal the hat off Steve’s head and push past him. Slipping it on and laughing to himself, he makes his way towards the Stark Tower.

Once he’s at the side doors, away from the main lobby, he leans against the wall with a smug smile on his face. Steve catches up, clearly trying to be more conscientious of the people around him. His hair is matted against his forehead and face red with the cold, but he doesn’t seem unhappy about it. Instead, he’s grinning back at Bucky with bright eyes when he stops in front of him.

“I could’ve seriously injured that guy,” he tells Bucky.

Bucky slips the hat off his own head and holds it out for Steve. “Will your hat make you feel better?”

Steve snatches it from Bucky but doesn’t put it back on. Instead, he slips it into his coat pocket and starts walking for the entrance. It only takes a few seconds for the elevator doors to slip open and Steve and Bucky get in, grateful for the warmth of the building.

Bucky pushes his wet hair behind his ears and realizes that Steve is watching him, his lips curled up slightly. Bucky meets his eyes and they stare at each other for a few moments until Steve walks a few steps over into his space and pulls Bucky close. He doesn’t kiss him at first, only leans his forehead against Bucky’s and lets their cold noses brush. Bucky takes the hint and tilts his chin so their lips touch.

Steve grips Bucky’s wet jacket as he deepens the kiss. He leans back, though, breath heavy as they stay in each other’s space. “I think I was in love with you before,” he tells Bucky quietly.

“I know I was,” Bucky replies. “I’ve known for a long time.”

Steve seems surprised by this and frowns a little. “How do you feel now?”

Bucky was in love with Steve before they fell, and Bucky isn’t sure how much of that love stayed with him, but he knows how he feels now. He’s hesitant, though, scared to voice how he actually feels. Steve is watching him so carefully, though, that frown still on his face.

“I still am,” Bucky finally admits quietly. “It’s not the same. It’s different.”

Steve’s hands are still fisted in Bucky’s jacket when he smiles softly. “Me too.”

Bucky leans back in to kiss Steve instead of trying to comprehend what he’s saying to him. He doesn’t understand how someone like Steve could still love him after everything he’s done, but he’s grateful it’s Steve.

Steve’s hands are just sliding under Bucky’s shirt, cold fingers heatedly pressing against the skin of Bucky’s stomach, when the elevator doors slide open. Steve drags Bucky to his bedroom, his hands growing warmer in Bucky’s grip.

Steve instantly has him up against the wall as he starts to strip Bucky’s jacket off and kiss him fervently. “Is this okay?” he whispers once he’s deposited the jacket to the floor.

Bucky doesn’t even have to think when he nods his head. He wants this now, and he had wanted it before, too.

They get each other out of their wet clothes slowly because they keep getting distracted with kisses and touches. Eventually, though, they make their way over to the bed. Bucky crawls on top of Steve, the two of them only in their briefs as they grind against each other teasingly slow and Bucky kisses hickeys into Steve’s neck.

Steve’s hands are twisted in Bucky’s hair when he pulls back and whispers, “I’ve never…”

Bucky squints at him. “ _Never_?”

“Well, once, but it was with – ” He stops himself. “I’ve never with a guy.”

“It’s not that complicated to figure out, trust me,” Bucky hums.

Steve quirks an eyebrow at this but doesn’t ask.

“I doubt we have the stuff.”

“We might,” Steve says quietly, blushing. “I wasn’t looking or anything, but I noticed one day in the bathroom. There’s – I mean, I _think_ – ”

“I’ll go check,” Bucky says, smiling at how tongue-tied Steve is.

It takes a few minutes, but he finally finds what Steve had found under the sink. He comes back to find Steve sitting up on the bed, looking more anxious than he was before. Bucky gives him a look. “You sure you want this?”

“Yeah,” Steve says automatically. Then he suddenly grows concerned. “Why? Do you not?”

Bucky rolls his eyes. “Yes. Obviously.”

Steve smiles softly at him, and Bucky thinks he looks beautiful with his hair all mused from the way Bucky’s been running his hand through it and the way his lips are a deep red from the kissing. Bucky’s still admiring him when Steve pulls him close to kiss him again.

***

Tony thinks he’s a genius when he hands Steve his suit for the missions.

It’s carefully stowed away in a black bag on a hanger, but when Steve zips it open, he groans. “Seriously, Tony?”

Bucky peers over to find an updated version of the Captain America suit. Instead of the bright colors from before, it’s toned down in a dark blue. Steve still balks when he sees it, giving Tony an annoyed look. “I can’t wear this,” he says. “People don’t even know I’m back.”

“They will after we storm the base,” Tony tells him. “Once we have a successful mission, we’ll do a big press conference.”

Steve still looks unimpressed.

“Plus, imagine how scared HYDRA will be when they see you dressed up in that thing,” Tony says, smiling to himself. “Put it on, see how it fits. Should be like a glove, but we’ve got some time to do some modifications before we ship out.”

Bucky grins at the way Steve snatches the costume bag and heads for the bathroom. Clint and Natasha are smirking too, talking amongst themselves quietly. They’re both already prepped for the mission and look unperturbed by the preparation in front of them.

Bucky tries not to make it obvious how nervous he is, but he figures it’s obvious with the way he keeps fidgeting with the sleeve of his jacket. It’s not exactly what he wore when he was with HYDRA, but the he’s dressed in all black and his metal arm is exposed.

He hasn’t been dressed up and prepped like this since his last mission with HYDRA. He doesn’t remember much about that day, but there’s something methodical and calming about it all, and Bucky’s not sure how he feels about that. Tony trust him enough with a gun, though, and Bucky’s hands slip into place the second it’s handed to him. The past two months he’s spent desperately trying to be something he forgot how to be, but he doesn’t have to try for this. He knows this part. Whether it’s bad or good, he knows this part well.

When Steve finally comes out of the bathroom dressed in the suit and the cowl, the smiles from before are all gone. He stands up tall and holds the shield out in front of him, chin held high. Everything about him is amplified, and Bucky almost can’t recognize the soft, sweet man behind the suit.

“Well, shit,” Tony says. “Definitely gonna scare ‘em in that.”

Steve rolls his eyes at this and takes off the cowl. “Are we ready?”

Bucky doesn’t miss the pointed look he gives him, but he chooses to ignore it. Tony glances at everyone, and when no one has any objections, he goes, “All good, Cap.” He makes a twirling motion with hands. “Move out.”

They’ve been prepping for the mission for at least two weeks, but everything still feels fast for Bucky. He knows everything he needs to know, and yet he’s still nervous. He can’t remember ever being nervous for a mission when he was with HYDRA.

On the quinjet, Bucky and Steve sit next to each other and Steve goes, “I feel a little ridiculous in this.”

This makes Bucky smile. “You look good. I like it.”

Steve seems amused by this but doesn’t say anything else on the matter. The ride is mostly quiet, and Bucky steadily feels more nervous the closer they get. He knows what to do, though, and he knows he can do it. He’s done much harder tasks than storming a HYDRA base. He’s done this before, and that was before he was a trained assassin.

Before they arrive, though, Steve gasps out a little, “ _Oh_.” Then, he’s reaching into one of the pockets of his pants and pulls out a pocketknife. It’s Bucky’s. The same one he had used during the war, and that he had given to Steve in the coffee shop because he didn’t think he could handle it.

“Thought you might want this back,” he tells him, holding it out on his palm for Bucky.

It takes a moment, one where Bucky wonders if he’s still not ready, but eventually he reaches out to grab it from Steve’s palm. He flips it over in his hands and then opens it to touch the cold blade. The dried blood from before is gone.

“I’m not going to let anything happen to you,” Steve tells him then.

Bucky scoffs. “Don’t need you protecting me.”

“I know.”

They smile at each other and Bucky puts the knife away in his pocket.

The quinjet lands a quarter mile from the base, and they check their comms one last time before splitting up and heading out. Steve and Bucky head for the base in silence, the two of them moving in sync. Bucky realizes he’s nearly shaking with adrenaline, but he keeps his hands steady on the gun in his grip.

The base is a nondescript building with little security. There’s no fence, either, and Bucky and Steve easily approach the side of the building with no issues. They’ve studied the floor plan, and know exactly what they’re getting themselves into, but once they’re finally at the door they’re supposed to break into, it becomes real.

Steve looks to Bucky with a questioning expression, and Bucky just nods firmly.

“Ready,” Steve says quietly into his earpiece.

The other’s all confirm they’re ready as well, and there’s a countdown before Steve is slamming at the lock of the door with his shield, easily granting them access into the building. When the door opens, alarms are already going off, red lights flashing ominously overhead as they creep inside.

A few agents are milling about near the door, and they’re only just reaching for their weapons when Steve and Bucky pick them off. After making sure the room is clear, they head for the next. It’s a clear mission, and all Steve and Bucky have to do is clear all the rooms until they eventually meet up with everyone else and collect data.

It’s painfully easy to fall back into place behind the gun. He’s spent the last few weeks desperately trying to convince himself he’s not a monster, but with the practiced grace of all the killings he’s dealing out, he thinks maybe he was wrong. He’s fighting for the good guys now, though, and his therapist would say that. _Steve_ would say that.

There’s no time to think about Bucky’s morality as they do their work. Each room clears surprisingly easily. It’s only when they meet up with Tony, Natasha, and Clint that things take a turn. When they walk in, weapons ready to be aimed, they find the three of them crowded around a computer in the corner of the room.

“It’s weird,” Natasha says, typing away on the keyboard. “They purged everything except one file.”

Steve and Bucky exchange nervous glances and start to walk over to them. Before they can get a chance to read what’s up on the screen, a voice speaking in Russian fills the room.

“ _Desperation_.”

Everyone’s head whip around, trying to figure out where it’s coming from, but all they can hear is the crackle of the intercom as it speaks again.

“ _Abandoned_.”

Tony looks up from the computer, a slightly dazed expression on his face, and then turns to Natasha. “What is it saying?”

“I thought the base was clear,” Natasha says, sharp eyes looking the room over as she ignores him.

“ _Twenty_.”

Suddenly, Bucky’s stomach drops at the realization of what’s going on. He instantly turns to Steve to find him gone pale and muttering something to himself. These aren’t Bucky’s words, but he knows they have to be Steve’s.

“ _Twilight_.”

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky says quickly, cautiously placing a hand on Steve’s shoulder. “Steve, that’s not you anymore.”

“ _Numb_.”

Bucky tries to shake Steve’s shoulders but he’s acting like he can’t even tell he’s touching him. His eyes are glazed over and he won’t even look at Bucky.

“ _Four_.”

Natasha looks to Clint. “Find out where it’s coming from. Make it stop.”

“ _Buried_.”

Bucky is desperately repeating Steve’s name but nothing is working.

Natasha pushes Bucky off from him. “You need to take the shield from him,” she tells him urgently. “Take any of the weapons he has on him.”

“ _Family_.”

He isn’t sure how she knows what’s going on, but Bucky reaches out to take the shield from Steve. Steve’s grip is tight, though, and Natasha is the one who pushes Steve backwards and surprise him enough for Bucky to grab ahold of the shield. Her push seems to snap Steve back into reality, though, and he’s suddenly barreling towards Natasha.

“ _Seven_.”

Natasha easily sidesteps the attack but she has no back up since Clint is gone and Tony is still at the computer, squinting at the screen with his mouth agape.

“The gun!” Bucky shouts through the chaos, already jumping to help. “He has a gun in the holster.”

“ _Freight car_.”

Bucky freezes when he hears this. He has the same word in his, too. Hearing it said aloud again in that same hard Russian as before makes him flinch and grip his gun harder. He’s not the Asset anymore. He’s changed. He’s good now.

The word sets Steve off, though, like he instantly knows his mission. He turns straight to Bucky and down to the shield still in his grip before running straight for him. Bucky holds up the shield in some attempt at neutrality, but all it does it soften the blow when Steve tackles him to the ground. The last person he wants to fight is Steve.

He doesn’t get an option, though, when Steve is savagely shoving the shield away and wrapping his arms around Bucky’s neck. Bucky grapples uselessly at Steve, but it only makes him tighten his grip. Bucky’s scared that the last thing he’s going to see is the empty look on Steve’s face, and having to know it was his hands that did him in.

Before he can choke him out, though, Natasha manages to separate the two of them. Bucky gasps on air, but ends up in a coughing fit. He’s tearing up when he realizes that Natasha is keeping Steve from him. He doesn’t even look to be concerned by her, though, and instead clearly wants to get back to Bucky.

Bucky kicks his fallen gun across the room and heads for Steve and Natasha. Bucky isn’t sure what their approach should be, but he isn’t using a gun. He can’t kill Steve. He won’t let anyone else do it, either.

Before Bucky can even throw a punch, Tony is suddenly grabbing Natasha and forcing her back.

“What the hell?” she asks, struggling in his grip.

With the opening, Steve comes hurtling at Bucky. He blocks all of Steve’s blows, but he’s giving desperate looks to Tony and Natasha.

“You killed them!” Tony yells at Bucky. “You _killed_ my parents.”

When Bucky hears this, he halts. Tony _knows_.

“The one file they left,” Natasha says, piecing things together before Bucky can.

They wanted this.

Steve throws a punch at Bucky’s face and it hits because of how distracted Bucky is. He’s nearly knocked over with the force of the punch, but only catches him to be hit with another one in the gut, which does send him to the ground. Steve is instantly on top of and punching his face again. He can hear Natasha and Tony arguing, but he can’t make out words because Steve punches two more times, his fists bloody when he pulls back.

Bucky’s reeling from the punches, but he’s already slipping his hand into his pocket, realizing what he had stowed away. Steve wraps his arms around Bucky’s neck again, grip just as tight as before, and Bucky struggles to flick the knife open.

“ _Steve_ ,” he chokes out uselessly, hoping that he won’t have to use the knife. He shouldn’t have to use it, and especially not on Steve of all people.

He’s losing consciousness, though, and everything in his body is telling him to stay alive.

He’s just about to use the knife, and stab Steve, but then Clint is shoving Steve off from him, the two of them clattering to the ground. Bucky drops his knife and gasps for breath again. He stands wobbly and holds up his fists, ready to keep fighting, but then he realizes that Steve is lying on the ground, eyes closed and unmoving.

“What the fuck is going on?” Clint yells, sitting up.

Bucky quickly drops to his knees at Steve’s side and checks for a pulse on his neck. He lets out a shaky breath when he can feel the light pulse.

“Did he hit his head?” Bucky demands, suddenly realizing this might reset him just as it did before.

Clint is still assessing the situation with wide eyes. “I don’t – I think. I’m not sure. What did I miss?”

Natasha is still in Tony’s grip, but she’s no longer struggling, and instead slumped over in relief. Tony, though, is staring wildly at Bucky.

“Did you always remember?” he spits angrily at Bucky. “Or did you remember and not feel the need to tell me? Let me be your _friend_ after you murdered my own parents.”

Everyone is quiet and looking at Bucky, waiting for an answer.

“How was I supposed to tell you?” Bucky asks quietly, voice hoarse from Steve’s hands around his neck. He’s bloody, and exhausted, and terrified of the look on Tony’s face. He’s spent weeks agonizing over what he’s done, and now that Tony knows, a part of him is happy it’s finally out.

“Tony,” Natasha says firmly. “It wasn’t him.”

At that, Tony lets go of her and starts walking towards Bucky. “I’ll kill you myself,” he says.

Clint and Natasha are faster, though, and stand in front of Tony with weapons aimed at Tony.

“You won’t,” Natasha tells him.

Tony is in his Iron Man suit and could probably fight off the three of them, but his face changes when he sees them huddled together.

“Clint, help Bucky get Steve out of here,” she demands now, not moving her gaze from Tony.

Clint nods and puts away the arrow he had strung up. Bucky and Clint carefully back away and struggled to get Steve off the ground.

***

Steve wakes up before they get back to the tower.

He looks up to Bucky with confused eyes and struggles to sit up, a hand coming up to rub at his skull. He takes one look around the cabin and decides not to ask what happened. He must already know.

Clint and Bucky had spent at least an hour camped outside the HYDRA base, the two of them silent except for when Clint had put a reassuring hand on Bucky’s shoulder and went, “He’ll calm down eventually.” He had, too, or at least enough to even allow Steve and Bucky on quinjet to take them back to the tower.

Now, he’s in the pilot seat with a grim expression on his face, occasionally looking around to stare angrily at Bucky.

Bucky tries not to think about the knife that he had forgotten on the floor of the building. He had almost hurt Steve with it, and something about it haunts Bucky.

When they arrive, Clint stops Bucky and Steve from going back to their floor and offers up his place for the night. Bucky isn’t sure whether Clint thinks that the Stark Tower isn’t their home anymore or if Tony will try to murder them in their sleep, but either way, Bucky nods and accepts the offer for the two of them.

They change quickly before taking a cab over to his apartment. It’s not as nice as Bucky expects it to be, and something about the place reminds Bucky of his old apartment in Brooklyn. When Clint is putting his keys in the lock, the sound of a dog barking makes Bucky flinch.

“Just Lucky,” he tells them, already swatting at the golden retriever to keep him from jumping all over the three of them.

Steve barely cracks a smile as he gives the dog a few pets before hanging his arms at his sides stiffly.

“You can share the guest bedroom,” Clint offers, then hesitates. “Or one of you could sleep on the couch. It’s up to you.”

When Bucky glances over to Steve, his head is bent, eyes not even meeting Bucky’s. “We’ll share,” Bucky tells Clint easily.

It’s tense and quiet in the spare bedroom, and Bucky has to escape to the bathroom to regroup. He stares at his reflection in the mirror for a long few minutes. His face is dark with bruises from Steve’s fists and caked in dried blood. Natasha had looked it over on the quinjet and decided nothing was broken, but Bucky’s whole head is still throbbing. The reflection reminds him of when he first looked at himself after being rescued.

After a quick shower, he slips back into the bedroom to find Steve in the same position he left him, perched at the end of the bed with a sour expression on his face.

“I hurt you, didn’t I?” he asks when Bucky walks in, voice hurt.

Bucky shakes his head. “It wasn’t you.”

Steve looks at him properly now, and can probably see the bruises and the cuts even if Bucky’s washed away the blood. His eyes drop lower, to Bucky’s neck, where there are dark bruises in the shape of Steve’s hands. His face scrunches with disgust and for a second, Bucky thinks he might cry. His voice is choked up when he goes, “I’m sorry, Buck, I’m so – ” He stops himself, dropping his head and scrubbing at his face.

Slowly, Bucky approaches him and tries to sit down next to him, but Steve jumps up and moves away. Bucky grabs his forearm, trying to rein him in, but Steve yanks his arm away, holding it close to his chest.

“Don’t touch me,” he begs, eyes wide with fear. “Please.”

He’s scared that he’s going to hurt Bucky, and the realization makes Bucky’s chest ache.

“Steve, look at me,” he says. Steve’s head is still bent, but he peers up cautiously. “You’re not going to hurt me.”

“I did, though,” he whispers.

“What would you say if it would’ve been me? If they would’ve said my words?” he asks. Steve is silent. “You’d tell me it wasn’t my fault. You’d say it was them.”

Steve’s eyes are glassy when he looks up at Bucky again. His mouth opens like he wants to respond, but nothing comes out. Bucky pushes forward and wraps Steve up in a hug. Steve’s stiff for a few moments, but eventually gives in and hugs Bucky back, his grip surprisingly tight. He hides his face in Bucky’s shoulder and mutters out apologies that Bucky ignores.

“It wasn’t you, Steve,” he assures him quietly. “Wasn’t you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, so i know i originally put this as only having four parts, but i decided to add an epilogue. so expect that very soon. 
> 
> also, when coming up with steve's trigger words, i kept them kind of close to Bucky's since i felt like hydra could possibly have a formula or something. bonus points to you if you can think of why i chose some of the words i did. 
> 
> i wrote up a post on why i selected steve's triggers words [here](http://hiver-soldier.tumblr.com/post/151776077308).


	5. Chapter 5

  **EPILOGUE**

 

Bucky wakes to the sound of Steve making noise in the kitchen.

Checking his phone, Bucky finds it’s only nine o’clock, but Steve’s always up early to go on a jog or to draw in the early morning light. Bucky rolls over on his back and stares at the ceiling for a few minutes before finally deciding to get up and head for the kitchen.

Steve is at the stovetop flipping a pancake when he walks in, bacon sizzling loudly on another pan.

Bucky smirks and asks, “You making me breakfast in bed?”

Startled a little, Steve whirls around to find Bucky grinning at him. He rolls his eyes then. “You wish,” he says, turning back to flip another pancake.

Bucky leans against the doorframe and fondly watches him work in their tiny kitchen. They’ve been living in the apartment for a couple weeks now, and they’ve someone made it feel like home even if Brooklyn still feels so different. There’s a certain amount of freedom that comes with living away from the Stark Tower, and Bucky and Steve are happy for it even if they would be welcomed back if they wanted to.

Tony hasn’t quite forgiven Bucky, and he suspects that day might never come, but he puts on a face of neutrality whenever they around each other. He had, though, opted out of the other two missions, and it was only Steve, Natasha, Clint and Bucky on their own.

“Can I help?” Bucky finally asks, pushing himself off against the wall and walking towards Steve.

Steve automatically hands him the spatula and goes, “Make some pancakes.”

Bucky does as he’s told, being careful not to burn the pancakes like he had the first time he tried making them. He’s gotten the hang of it, though, and distractedly watches as Steve runs an apple under the tap and then starts to cut it on the counter. The hand that’s holding the knife is careful and precise, and Bucky is only snapped out of watching him when Steve holds out one of the pieces. “You want one?” he asks.

Hesitantly, Bucky reaches out to take it from and then pops it in his mouth, watching as Steve does the same with another piece.

“Don’t burn the pancakes,” he says, still chewing on his bite.

Bucky smirks and flips the ones he has on the pan.

They eat at their small kitchen table, the food placed out like feast for a group of people and not just the two of them. Bucky is on his fourth (or fifth?) pancake when Steve goes, “Are you ready for today?”

It’s a hard question to answer. Their press conference has been scheduled for a week now, and every time Bucky tries to imagine how it’ll go, he shuts down. There are too many variables. If he thinks too hard about it he’ll just want to find a way to get out of it.

Shrugging, Bucky shoves a forkful of pancake in his mouth to avoid having to say anything.

“It’s going to be good,” Steve assures him. “We’re going to tell the truth.”

SHIELD had tried to keep them from telling the truth, but Steve had insisted. Instead of the tragic but heroic tale that SHIELD had concocted about their absence, they’re going to fess up about their crimes. Bucky’s not sure if it’s the right decision, but it’s what Steve wants. Bucky trusts him.

After breakfast, they get ready in silence. It’s not until Bucky is changed that he takes a look in the bathroom mirror and frowns. His hair is longer than it’s ever been in soft, greasy-looking waves. Steve is brushing his teeth again beside him, and through a mouthful of foam goes, “What?”

“Can you cut my hair?” he asks suddenly, making Steve gives him a confused look. “It’s too long.”

Steve spits. “Now?”

Bucky nods, still troubled by his reflection.

“I know I used to cut my own hair sometimes,” Steve says, “but you do remember how horrible it used to turn out, right?”

“I’m pretty sure you can do it,” Bucky tells him confidently. “I just want a few inches off.”

Steve shrugs and then goes off in search of a pair of scissors. Carefully unbuttoning his shirt, Bucky sets it aside so it doesn’t get dirty and waits for Steve to come back. When he does, a pair of household scissors in his grip, he gives Bucky a contemplative look before pushing him so he’s sitting on the edge of the bathtub.

“You sure about this?” he asks again, smiling softly.

Bucky rolls his eyes. It’s enough of an answer for Steve.

He starts in the front, eyes moving quickly from side to side as he tries to cut evenly. He’s only a few snips in when the cold metal of the scissors graze the skin on Bucky’s neck as Steve lines up his next cut. Bucky’s hands tighten to fists on instinct, but he wills himself to remains calm. The touch sends him back to when Steve had shoved him to the ground and held his knife against Bucky’s neck in a warning.

Instead of the threat of a sliced neck, Steve makes another cut and Bucky’s hair falls to the ground. Bucky stares at the pile of his hair littering the tile for a few moments as Steve makes more careful cuts.

“Steve,” he finally says, voice quieter than he means it to be.

Cocking his head a little, Steve hums, “Huh?”

Bucky places a hand on Steve’s cheek, slightly startling him. He looks over, blinking a few times, clearly lost in concentration. Bucky pulls him forward with the collar of his shirt and gives him a kiss. Steve makes a surprised noise in his throat but kisses back, his lips curling into a smile.

“Thank you,” Bucky tells him quietly.

Steve looks a little breathless, but shrugs. “Shouldn’t start thanking me until you see how it looks.”

Bucky rolls his eyes and lets Steve finish. Once he’s done, after checking it over several times, Bucky dusts off any stray strands and puts his shirt back on. In the mirror, he looks better. Steve is next to him, smirking at his handiwork.

“Not the worst haircut I’ve got,” Bucky finally says.

Steve knocks his shoulders into Bucky’s. “You’re welcome.”

They make eye contact in the mirror, and Bucky can’t help but to smile back at him.

“You finally ready to go?” Bucky teases.

“Only if you are.”

Bucky thinks he is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> thanks for reading and giving me comments/kudos. means a lot :")
> 
> psss i’m on tumblr as hiver-soldier.


End file.
